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When Life Feels Like an Uphill Climb.

Sometimes it feels like life is an uphill climb along a steep, cold mountainside with unforgiving inclines and steep turns.  When will life get easier?  Just when it looks like a breakthrough is near, another challenge presents itself; another rocky path with limited vision for the path ahead.  

Sometimes I would just like a few moments to catch my breath!  I want to stop, lean against the mountainside, take in deep breaths to get my strength back.   Life's coldness chaps my face from the blustery wind, and I long for hot chocolate and a blanket around a warm fire.  A good rest and some food will help for the journey ahead.  

Very few people make it to the top of Mount Everest.  It is a challenge fraught with steep inclines, fierce and unpredictable weather, frigid temperatures.  Even if you make it to the top there is no guarantee you'll make it back down.  Yet many still set out to give it a try.  

Life often feels that way; unpredictable, fierce, up-hill.  It's easy to get discouraged.  It is tempting to quit, to tune out, to numb ourselves.  Isn't life supposed to be about happiness? Isn't it about attaining things and feeling accomplished?  That lady looks so perfect and happy in her new car on the commercial?  Certainly I should be able to attain that!   

In reality, we are all on this challenging journey and face a variety of hardships day after day. Fellow travelers, life is hard, often unfair, and feels like an up-hill climb.  But there is hope.  We have a future to look forward to that will make it worth staying with it.  Where can you find the strength to keep going?

God's word promises to give us "hinds feet" for high places for the mountainous terrain our life, "The Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like hinds' feet, and makes me walk on high places."  Habakkuk 3:19 

What in the world is "hinds feet?"  A female red deer, whose home is the mountains, have hinds feet to enable them to gracefully walk on the roughest terrain.  They live in the high mountain regions.  Their rear feet (or hind feet) step in exactly the same spot where the front feet have just been.  With single-focused consistency, the hind feet follow the motion of the the front feet, making it the most sure-footed of all mountain animals.

When we lean on God for strength he enables us to walk like the deer in rocky, mountainous, often treacherous terrain.  What troubles are you facing?  Do you wonder how you are going to navigate it?  Seek God's word for strength, pray for help, and God will give you "hinds feet" to enable you to keep going.  He will help you to find your way through the precarious challenges you face.   He will steady you as you trust him and he will keep you from falling.  You may even look as graceful as the red deer!  Someone else may wonder how you do it, even though you personally know how tough it is.  

Blessings to you as you face life's challenges.  May you be granted "hinds feet" to keep you steady on the mountaintops of life.  Hang in there and don't give up.  

-Gretchen 

 

 

by Gretchen Flores