Dear Struggling Mama,
If you’re feeling frazzled, desperately hopeless, and weary right down to your soul, I see you.
I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit.
Some days, survival mode feels endless.
You wake up tired, go to bed exhausted, and in between, you’re just trying to keep everyone and everything from falling apart.
Ten years ago this week, I was in that place.
It was the week my mom went home to be with Jesus.
Grief cracked my world wide open.
I was a newlywed, working full-time in a stressful job, when my mom suffered a massive stroke that left her brain dead. We had to watch for 10 days as her body shut down and she slipped away.
Every day felt like a battle to simply keep breathing, keep showing up, keep moving forward.
And yet… God met me there.
Not in the moments I had it all together, but in the ones where I had nothing left to give.
He carried me through the chaos and gently reminded me that survival mode doesn’t have to mean failure. It can also mean endurance.
When Survival Mode Feels Unending
If you’re walking through a season where it feels like life just keeps hitting you with one thing after another, I want you to hear this:
You are not weak because you’re tired.
You are not faithless because you feel stretched thin.
And you are not alone in the middle of the mess.
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” — Romans 5:3–5 (NLT)
Romans 5:3–5 reminds us that even our struggles serve a purpose.
Endurance builds character.
Character deepens hope.
And hope anchors us in God’s love.
That means this hard season is not wasted.
Every tear, every prayer whispered through exhaustion, every small act of showing up, it’s all growing something in you that cannot be shaken.
What Standing Strong Really Looks Like
Standing strong doesn’t always look like bold confidence or perfect faith.
Sometimes it looks like getting out of bed when you’d rather hide under the covers.
Sometimes it looks like whispering “Lord, help me” while folding laundry or crying in the car between work and pick-up.
And sometimes it looks like surrender, letting God hold you when you don’t have the strength to stand.
You don’t have to have it all together to be strong.
Strength is found in surrender.
It’s found in trusting that God is still working, even when you can’t see the outcome yet.
A Heart That Hopes Again
Friend, if today you feel like you’re living in survival mode, take heart.
You are building endurance.
You are developing strength of character.
And you are being filled with a hope that will not disappoint because it’s rooted in the One who never fails.
Let that hope be your anchor this week.
Let His love fill the cracks where your strength runs out.
And know that even in the chaos, you are still growing, still loved, still held.
Reset Reflection
Where have you seen God strengthen your endurance through the challenges of this season?
Pause today and thank Him for the quiet ways He’s carried you when you couldn’t carry yourself. 💜
Much love & many hugs,
Julie
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