What if it doesn’t get easier? The call to ‘Handle Hard Better’ and hold on to hope

Kara Lawson, head coach of Duke Women’s Basketball Team, gave a stirring speech played recently that caught my attention at a leadership institute I attended for administrators in my district.

She makes the point that often we wait for things to get easier. We keep looking forward to it. But it isn’t going to happen. If we move through life that way we will be disappointed and despairing when we realize it gets harder. Instead we must handle hard better and we learn to. That’s the challenge of it and the beauty of it, it makes us stronger. It makes us better. But we mustn’t shy away from the hard things. We must simply handle hard better.

It’s the pep talk we didn’t know we needed.

And it’s so profound.

I’ve never progressed or grown during easy times in my life.

But when I’ve walked through the fire and been stressed up to my eyeballs, I learned I had to come to the end of me and cling to Jesus.

Because when I can’t, He can!

And He will!

I love this verse because it is an invitation and a promise.

In Jeremiah 29:13, we read “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

It means we must seek.

Even in the uncertainty.

Even in the discouragement.

Even in the discomfort.

Then we will find Him.

The source of joy. The source of strength. The source of peace.

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.

    Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you.

    I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” - Isaiah 41:10

Even more powerful as He’s talking to Israel and I feel this personally in the verse before in the NLT translation, He says,

“I have called you back from the ends of the earth,

    saying, ‘You are my servant.’

For I have chosen you

    and will not throw you away.”

Sometimes we think we are thrown away.

But God has chosen us.

And He has a plan for us.

Even here.

And even here we can seek Him with our whole hearts and trust Him. Because finding Him in the mess is the greatest thing we can do as He turns  our trials into our testimonies.

Dear Reader, God is not done with you yet.