How to Thrive When You’re Stuck in the Middle
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There’s something suffocating about feeling stuck. When we don’t know the length of this middle season, and we can’t quite breakthrough, can’t quite make it end, we begin to feel a little anxious. A little hopeless.
I’ve felt this too. When choices that weren’t mine to choose ripped apart a family. When decisions that weren’t mine to make hurt many in a church and community. When we couldn’t sell a rental property that kept draining us, when things fell apart that cost a lot to fix, when the patterns kept repeating and we felt powerless in the middle of it all, and with two lingering and limiting injuries.
I don’t know the details of your stuck today. But this I know to be true: there is always a way to thrive when He lives inside.
It’s the same story repeated throughout all of history. We need rescued, and there is One who is the Rescuer. And He comes for us. Every time. Maybe not exactly the way we picture it. But He never gives up on coming for us.
Sometimes we pray for it to be over instead to see how His goodness and nearness is with us even then.
Sometimes we fight against the process because we can’t see how there is good growing in us because of it.
It took twenty-one years of waiting for me to see how true it is that the best things are worth waiting for. And what I learned those years of singleness helped me trust the goodness and faithfulness of God through the things that came next.
I was not alone, and that was something I had to learn while being the one single and still waiting. I wouldn’t change my story if I could because I found when you spend hours a day with God, you can never forget the sweetness of His companionship.
When you know how dearly God loves you, you know His love is all you truly need.
Even when the middle seems long and dim, He is the light that shines brightest in the darkest spaces. He is the hand always outstretched. He is the hope we can build our lives on.
Gratitude invites the light in
I’ve said this often, but I’ll say it again because it’s made all the difference for me. When you can hardly make out the light, praise God anyways. When you feel stuck and overwhelmed and small, praise God anyways. When you can’t see the way out, praise God anyways.
Gratitude is not an after, but a before. It’s the opening act. It opens the door to let God in and fear, worry, and selfishness out. It’s a choice to become soft, moldable, willing in the hands of God—even where there is more we don’t understand. It doesn’t take away all our questions, but it helps us learn to trust Him in the middle of them.
Invite others to walk with you through the middle
There is this too: when you feel like you are barely surviving, much less thriving, invite others to walk with you through the middle.
“If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together,” says an African proverb, and I know the words are packed with truth. Because I’ve walked the road of going as fast as I can alone. And I’ve slowed, and I’m learning to show up, and let others in. And this walking together with no facades, there is nothing quite like it.
When you share the questions that keep you up at night and the ways you are still learning to let God have His way inside you, it invites others to also be real—to open up too, to God and others. We can’t get rid of the emptiness by closing more doors. The only way fill the space is to let God be the Filler—and one of the beautiful ways He fills us with Himself is through community.
Put truth in visible places
And finally, this: when all you can see is what’s right in front of you, change what’s right in front of you.
I learned to plaster my walls with Bible verses from a teammate the summer I spent in New Zealand with a youth ministry. When I returned home that summer I did a make-over of the wood-paneled walls in my bedroom. I deconstructed an old black-and-white calendar, wrote Scriptures across them, and duct-taped them literally everywhere on my wall. I added flags, maps, and magazine photos of faces all around the world.
My room became my secret place—the place I would steal away to spend time with God. It was my prayer closet, a sanctuary, a space I expected to encounter the presence of God.
When I moved to college, I took my collages with me. My half of the dorm room was soon transformed, and though it was a hang-out place for many of our friends, it remained a place I knew I could meet God in an instant.
I was single through all but the very end of six years of college, but I knew how near He was. Putting Bible verses all over my wall was not just a testimony to others of Who had my heart, it helped truth sink in and root down deep.
Further resources for the one feeling stuck
The ideas I’ll share here are meant to be simply that: ideas. They are not a check-list, and I don’t want to feel you need to do all of them. But if an idea listed gives you pause, listen. Maybe there is something God has for you through that particular book or practice.
Gratitude
- Read Ann Voskamps’s book One Thousand Gifts
- Begin your own ongoing gratitude list. I started at #1. So did Ann. So too can you.
- Subscribe to Begin Within: A Gratitude Series to get a weekly, real-life story of how someone else is practicing gratitude right in your email inbox.
Community
- Read Caesar Kalinowski’s book Transformed: A New Way of Being Christian. It’s packed with story and will give you a taste of what life lived in community with others can look like.
- Read Kristin Shell’s book The Turquoise Table: Finding Community and Connection in Your Own Front Yard. It’s one of my favorites and will inspire you with practical ideas of community living right in your own front yard.
- For a gentle, slow-paced invitation to begin living a missional life in your neighborhood, starting with the posture of your heart, check out my little book, Cultivating a Missional Life: A 30-Day Devotional to Gently Help You Open Your Heart, Home, and Life to Your Neighbors. It’s always free to read with Kindle Unlimited and you can also get the first week as a free download here.
Scripture
- 66 memory verse cards—one for every book of the Bible. Get your free download here.
- 40 printable Bible verse cards, also free! Get all the details here.
- Printable Bible verse sets (yep, free too!) for moms of various demographics. Check them out here.
- A list of Scripture verses to pray with an option at the end to get them as a printable. Get them here.
- Lovely sets of Scripture printables—all free! Get them here.
- 31 Scripture Verses to Pray Over Your Teens & College Students—get a free download here!
Friend, you don’t have to stay stuck today! This is not to say that all your problems will magically disappear and you won’t have to wait for good things to grow, but that icky, sticky, debilitating feeling of being stuck, that can go.
So let go. And cling instead to Him. Because where He is, there is always freedom, and hope, and life!
Let’s close with a prayer of blessing.
Lord, sometimes the days feel long and void of light, void of You. We know You are here, but sometimes we can’t see how You are near, how You always make a way, how You never stop coming for us. Open our eyes today. May we see You, know You, praise You. May we surrender to You and open up and let others walk with us, alongside You. May we hold fast to Your truth that sets us free, every time. In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Change your actual life in less than 5 minutes per day!
You can change your actual life in less than 5 minutes a day because baby steps truly can change the trajectory of your life. If you want 2021 to be the year you actually start living on mission in your neighborhood, this little book (available as a paperback and on Kindle) will help you get there. Each of the 30-day devotions takes but a few minutes to read, but they will lead to lasting life change.
If you’d like to check out Part 1 of the devotional FREE and also gain access to the rest of the missional living resources I’ve created for you in the new For You library, let me know here where to send the unlock code!
