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“…your strength will be renewed each day like the morning dew.”

-Psalm 110:3

“He renews my strength…”

-Psalm 23:3

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How’s this week going? Are you weary? Is there anything sapping your reserves? Have you pushed hard and still lost progress? Have you tried to recover but it’s never enough and the needs keep pushing you further into deficit?

Do you need new strength?

Let me tell you a story where I wound up crying in public by a giant fish tank.

And let me tell you that I wish this type of story was a rarity. There are times I can have a lot of grit, but get to know me well enough, and you will see my tears.

This story begins with a lump in Benaiah’s abdomen that we’ve been dismissing for a while. Surely he’s just a little constipated. Then we were keeping an eye on it with his pediatrician. It’s probably something that’s going to resolve on its own, but it’s been just stubborn and long-lived enough that it turned into another trip for imaging at the Children’s Hospital, because it’s Benaiah. And with Benaiah, my crazy medical story child, our doctor says, “We err on the side of ruling things out early.”

This imaging trip had me carrying a fasting, cranky toddler in his pajamas through several levels of parking garage to hospital registration at 7 am last week. Just another round of medical stuff to rule out and check off and hopefully move on from. We can get through this, I breathed, and smiled at him, willing this day to go smoothly.

But then I learned that for an abdominal ultrasound, the child has to hold still while the technician presses pretty hard on their stomach with the wand in order to get clear imaging. No problem, I’ve held Benaiah still for many, many tests and procedures at this point.

But then I learned the child’s abdominal muscles have to relax for them to get clear imaging. They cannot be fussing or fighting AND they have to hold still WHILE repeated sweeps of the ultrasound wand (coated with a gooey gel they will be freaked out by) presses uncomfortably deep into the area they’re supposed to hold relaxed.

And that is where I started to wonder how I was going to convince Benaiah. The ultrasound tech, manager, child life services, and I worked at it with him for an hour and 45 minutes. We tried water play, bubbles, shows, toys, bribery and distraction to no avail. Then we looked across the room at each other and our eyes registered the reality together: we were not going to get what we came for today. Maybe a different child. Maybe a different age. But Benaiah, at this age, with this imaging modality would have needed sedation to cooperate.

We wrapped up with deep sighs and I walked out of the room with my dignity (mostly) intact. I wandered the many hallways back toward the parking garage, asked a polite doctor for directions to coffee in a dead tone, eventually found a cool, giant fish tank for Benaiah to look at, and plunked into a chair so I could bury my head in my hands and have a private cry before attempting the hour drive home.

It’s not my fault. It’s not his fault. It’s not the doctor or the tech’s fault. It’s just hard. It’s so hard.

Not all by itself, but as another layer on top of everything else. It’s hard to expend the energy and not make headway. It’s hard to circle back for yet another appointment, yet another round of testing. To hold the possibilities that probably he’s okay, but maybe there’s something else we need to address with a child that regularly has a good number of things in both categories.

Benaiah babbled excitedly about the fish and I quietly cried, wiped tears, and cried a little more, trying to collect myself to drive safely. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up.

There was the child life specialist. The very one who had labored alongside me for an hour and 45 minutes to try get a glimpse of what was going on inside Benaiah’s abdomen. She dropped down next to me and spoke softly, “There’s a reason I happened to be walking this way. I’m here. What do you need?”

“Just new strength, I guess,” I sniffed. “I used up what I had for today and it didn’t make a difference. So I need to know there will be more for the next round. I need to remember that I will have what I need for him when he keeps needing more.”

She nodded with understanding.

And in my heart, there was a quiet nudging:

My mercies are new each morning. I renew your strength. On a new morning when you are facing the next round or re-do, your strength will be new for it. But you don’t need to face all that now. You just need to enough to drive home.

The child life specialist hugged me and whispered, “it’s okay that he needs extra help. We have plenty of help to give. It’s there if you ask for it. Just keep asking.”

I took a deep breath and I asked and enough strength came to face the rest of the walk to the parking garage. I buckled my seatbelt, closed my eyes, took another deep breath and asked. Enough strength to navigate to the coffee shop. I breathed easier and laughed at Benaiah wildly scrambling to climb the rails as we waited in line at a breezy outdoor coffee hub and the sunshine warmed my tear-stained skin. Enough strength to handle the interstate. And so on went my day. When I removed what I wasn’t meant to face right then, there was enough strength after all.

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When things go differently than expected or I’ve worked so hard and I still need to re-do something, I don’t have to have the strength right then to immediately rally for another go – just the strength to work through the disappointment and pivot. When it’s time to try again, there will be new strength on that day to face it.

There is enough for this next step. But not if I’m carrying the not-right-now things, too.

“[There is] a time to search and a time to quit searching…Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time…He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

-Ecclesiastes 3:6, 11

My heart was built to know that there’s more to the picture than what I see. The seed is knowing there’s more and yearning for it. The fruit will be stepping into all that is coming. All that He has prepared for us.

Eternity is planted in our hearts, but it is not yet harvest time.

it takes trust to let go of trying to see it all when the pieces I can see don’t seem to piece together. It takes humility to remember that even though I was built to know there’s more to the picture, I am not yet meant to see the whole scope.

Lord, you know all the things I do not and that’s enough.

Many questions I tend to carry. But there’s a time to search and a time to quit searching.

Because no matter how hard and how desperately I search, I will not be able to capture the breadth of all you’re doing. I could never truly get my bearings on how vast your understanding is, on how much of your heart and planning goes into every detail. I could never stretch far enough to even get the sum-up of it, so I could assess whether I agree.

Nor would I, if I searched for all I’m worth, get the measure of the breadth of your love for me, but it would be a far better exercise.

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully….”

-Ephesians 3:18-19

“He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding.”

-Isaiah 40:28

Lord,

I DO grow weak and weary. And my understanding leaves much to be desired.

I find myself tired and heavy-hearted and needing you once again.

I need to be encouraged. I need to sense your care for me. I need a light, trusting heart to go into my day with these beautiful boys whose needs I could never be adequate for. Especially after a brutal, sleepless night with a toddler screaming that his legs hurt.

Without you, I can do nothing.

With you, overwhelming victory and peace that passes understanding, and joy in every circumstance: these things belong to me.

Teach me to walk in them, Lord. In your unfailing, sustaining, glory strength, not in my weak, striving strength and darkened understanding.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

-1 Corinthians 13:12

“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we are ourselves are like fragile, clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves…That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.”

-2 Corinthians 4:7, 16

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.”

-Lamentations 3:22-23

These are the promises I will cling to.

Great power. New Strength. Fresh Mercy.

Every. Day.

Every day, you, the living fountain, supply all these things anew.

“For you are the fountain of life. The light by which we see.”

-Psalm 36:9

So it is okay that I reach a point where I feel parched and drained and empty and look at what’s before me wondering “How in the world, Lord?”

That’s the right question. And it’s the one you have always answered with, “I will be with you.”

“…Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel form the Midianites, I am sending you.”

“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “How can I rescue Israel?”

…The Lord said to Him, “I will be with you and you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

-Judges 6:13-16

“This is my command – be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

-Joshua 1:9

“But Moses protested to God, Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”

God answered, “I will be with you. And this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.”

-Exodus 3:11-12

“Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

-Matthew 28:18-20

There is a time to search and a time to quit searching. When you’re searching for new strength, keep searching. Search diligently and find it. Constantly renew your efforts to press into Him and don’t stop short with the flagging, failing strength of human effort alone.

“Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek Him.”

-Psalm 105:4

“Lord, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress”

-Isaiah 33:2

“…We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort.”

-Philippians 3:3

And when you, like me, are running ragged, feeling drained, juggling a thousand needs, thinking through scenarios, numbers, and possible outcomes, yearning for the perfect step to take, and frustrated that your costly effort didn’t produce the headway you expected; When your heart, like mine, is desperately searching for a grasp of what in the world God is doing and feeling frustrated with all the holes in the information you’re trying to piece together, quit searching.

We quickly come to the end of ourselves when we try to prepare for every possibility, or be our own supply for the strength that will be required of us in the steps ahead, or make sense of pain that leaves us with questions that have no simple answers.

We quickly come to the end of ourselves. Let us quickly realize it.

Quit searching and quench your thirst. Drink deeply from the strength that never grows weak or weary. Drink in the love that fills every aching crevice of our hearts and then overflows because you couldn’t possibly pack in anymore but there’s so much more pouring out. Drink in the light that defies our darkness.

Don’t give up. Search for new strength until you stand at the edge of that fountain. Then quit searching and revel in what you’ve found.

“For you are the fountain of life. The light by which we see.”

-Psalm 36:9

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to His throne. I am the bright morning star.”

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” Let anyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who desires drink freely from the water of life.”

-Revelation 22:16-17