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Life's Journey, Weary, Spiritual Warfare, Overwhelmed, Encouragement, Hope Dana Rongione Life's Journey, Weary, Spiritual Warfare, Overwhelmed, Encouragement, Hope Dana Rongione

Is the Christian Life Supposed To Be This Hard?

I'll admit something. For years, I pictured the Christian race as a Sunday-afternoon jog. I saw myself in cute sneakers with a gentle breeze in my hair, waving at the neighbors and admiring the scenery. "It's a marathon, not a sprint," I'd say, as if a marathon were just a sprint with better snacks.

Then I looked up the Greek word for "race" in Hebrews 12:1, and my smoothie hit the pavement.

The word is agōn, and yes, it's where we get "agony." It was the word for the contests held in the great stadiums, where athletes strained, gasped, and gave everything they had. The word carries the idea of struggle and conflict. Nobody in that arena was admiring the scenery.

We love the race verse. We put it on mugs and bookmarks. But we rarely talk about what it's like to run it on mile nineteen, with a blister, a headache, and a to-do list that's grown legs.

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Spiritual Warfare, weary, armor of God, Chronic Illness, Encouragement, Spiritual Growth Dana Rongione Spiritual Warfare, weary, armor of God, Chronic Illness, Encouragement, Spiritual Growth Dana Rongione

Putting on the Armor When You’re Tired

Last week, Jason and I finally did it. We hauled out the old, falling-apart dressers and replaced them with a shiny new (well, new to us) three-door wardrobe. Jason built in some shelves, I found the perfect baskets, and over the course of a few days, we went through every piece of clothing we had stuffed in those poor drawers.

Some things were easy to let go of: old, worn-out pieces that had lived a good life. Others I just never reached for anymore. But I'll be honest, there were more items than I'd like to admit that simply didn't fit anymore. I wish I could say that some had gotten too big, but sadly, that was NOT the case. Either way, they weren't doing me any good.

As I stood there, holding up yet another item that no longer fit and muttering something unladylike under my breath, a thought hit me: Sometimes the armor of God feels exactly like this.

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Weary, Adversity, Comfort, Encouragement, Hope Dana Rongione Weary, Adversity, Comfort, Encouragement, Hope Dana Rongione

God Uses Shabby Rabbits and Mute Swans

This morning, my mind wandered, which honestly isn't unusual. But this time, it wandered somewhere worth following.

I was thinking about three stories I've loved since childhood: The Ugly Duckling, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Here are three characters who had absolutely no business being the hero of anyone's story, or so the world around them thought. A gangly gray bird that didn't look like anyone else. A scruffy stuffed rabbit who was losing his button eyes and had the stuffing loved right out of him. A trumpeter swan named Louis, who couldn't make a sound and was silent in a world that communicated entirely through song.

It didn't take long to notice the thread running through all three stories. Each one of these characters was, by all outward appearances, broken. Unfit. The square peg in the round hole.

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