What to Hold Onto When Things Feel Impossible

As we welcome 2021 with perhaps a greater need for hope and promise than years past, it’s difficult to deny that the uncertainty of what this year will bring lingers in the shadows.

The weight of life feels heavier. Our world is spinning with chaos and confusion. Things seem out of control. And sometimes, it all just feels impossible.

But, no matter what your individual situation or circumstance may be within this context, I hope you hold fast to this: Christ is not only with you, but dwells within you.

This is important to remember because as the late beloved speaker Ann Kiemel reminds us:

“Only a strong Christ in me can give me what it takes to become and do all He had in mind for me to swing with poise and steadiness with the pendulum of life.”

Photo by Karen Roe

While 2020 likely felt more like a wrecking ball than a pendulum, learning to steady ourselves in Christ can help us see that even though things might seem impossible to us, nothing is impossible to Him.

Consider these words from Kiemel:

“I love the word ‘impossible.’ It’s one of my favorites because I have a giant of a God inside me.”

Indeed, this is the God who, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said:

“…walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death…who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity…who threw up the gigantic mountains, kissing the sky, as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blues.”

This is the God who, as Soren Kierkegaard wrote, commands

“…[t]he sighing of the wind, the echo of the forest, the whispering of the leaves…the rise of the sun at a given hour, and its setting at a given hour…and the agreement of the seasons of the year in their precise alternation…”

This is the God whose hand, as Irenaeus of Lyon wrote:

“…fashioned a foundation in you; he will cover you inside and out with pure gold and silver. He will so adorn you that the King himself will desire your beauty.”

The God, Epectitus wrote, whose

“…divine order is intelligent and fundamentally good. Life is not a series of random, meaningless episodes, but an ordered, elegant whole that follows ultimately comprehensible laws.”

As Kiemel reminds us, nothing is impossible for this God:

“I love the word impossible because my God believes in adventure and extraordinary mountains, and He dares to be alive in a world crawling with terrible situations. He promises to be bigger than any impossibility because He is love…and love always finds a way through, in time.”

And if ever we doubt His love for us, let us turn to the words of Mother Teresa:

“You belong to him. Nothing can separate you from him. That one sentence is important to remember. He will be your joy, your strength. If you hold onto that sentence, temptations and difficulties will come, but nothing will break you. Remember, you have been created for great things.”

As 2021 unfolds, may we all hold onto this truth — that we have within us a giant of a God who loves us beyond all measure, and for whom nothing is impossible.

Happy New Year!


Referenced posts:

· “I Love the Word Impossible”: Ann Kiemel on Our “Giant of a God”

·      Martin Luther King, Jr.: Sometimes to Move Forward, We Have to Go Backward

·      Worry, Not: Soren Kierkegaard on What We Can Learn from the Birds of the Air and Lilies of the Field

·      Yielding Control: Irenaeus of Lyon on What it Means to be a Created Being

·      Epictetus on How to Live a Good, Fulfilling Life

· Mother Teresa’s Essential Wisdom

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