I was an uninvited but welcome addition to a house of struggle. Come on in, girl, and struggle with us. We’ll keep you safe, and we’ll love you fierce, and we don’t care how you got here, because we know who sent you.

 That kind of love will get you anywhere you want to go…that kinda love got me where I am today. But between here and there was a whole lot of beautiful struggle. Love is what makes the struggle bearable. Love is what makes the struggle beautiful. Love is what brought the burly hard-hearted man to the altar, love is what toppled the levee and unleashed the flood into that dessert we called family. Love is what makes the struggle worthwhile.

 Obedience keeps the rain falling. Truth drives the locusts away. Repentance keeps the soil fertile. And struggle mends the fences, hoes the weeds, plucks the bean and shucks the corn. I love the struggle. There’s a place where struggle and peace meet, like two seas. Strive to enter the rest. I’m not trying to find a place where struggle doesn’t exist, I’m finding my peace, my calm in the storm. Don’t wake me up when the wind starts howling and the waves start building, let me sleep. I know who creates the wind, who drives the rain. I know who rocks the boat. I’m not afraid, I was born for this.