A Springboard to Success

I know what you must think when you read my posts. "She sounds so depressed... She sounds sad and lonely... This poor girl is so full of sorrow... She must be utterly beaten down..."
I can't fault you for thinking any such thoughts. Before I became the writer of these posts and the voice telling these stories I would have shared the same thoughts as you. Before my body and spirit knew the feelings of illness and physical helplessness I would have reacted with feelings of sympathy and pity. I might have even taken it a step further in my mind and asked what kind of life God was giving the girl writing the posts? Why would God let someone suffer? Is there no healing and victory in such a life?
Before I became the girl writing these posts I would have confused her sadness with defeat but now I know better. Now I know the truth about sadness.
To be sad is to be down, but it isn't to be out. Sadness never needs to be the end of the story. If given the chance, a step into sadness can actually be the springboard for spiritual success.
Allow me to explain...

Before Jesus went to the cross He went to the garden and He prayed. In His prayer, knowing full well His death warrant was already out and His crucifixion was imminent, Jesus asked God to relieve Him of His upcoming duty to be murdered. If you think my blog posts are sad, imagine how utterly depressing God's prayer must have sounded! Commentators of the Bible refer to that particular prayer as "Agony in the Garden."
At the end of His prayer Jesus left His fate in God's hands. "Not my will but yours." (Matthew 26:36-45). And we know how the story goes. God's will was indeed for Jesus to die in order to be the Savior of sinners.
At the foot of the cross as Jesus died, witnesses wept. They displayed sadness because of their loss. They couldn't see anything but ultimate defeat.
But remember what I said about sadness? This is where we see it in action as a springboard for spiritual success.
Three days later the most glorious, magnificent, splendid springboard sent our Savior up from the grave. Talk about spiritual success! Jesus took the ultimate sadness of death and transformed it into the ultimate joy of eternal life. Jesus wrote the book on turning sadness into gladness. He took the cruelest, surest defeat on earth and turned it into the greatest victory this world will ever know.

If you read words of sadness and feel pangs of pity when you read these posts, double check to make sure you've reached the end because in the end, because of Jesus, there is always victory. He won the ultimate victory and shares it with me every time I seek His intervention in my struggles. When I seek His help, He takes my sadness and uses it to tend to my spirit.
I know sadness, depression and sorrow but that is never where my stories end. There is always success and it is found in my Savior. He always comes near to me in my sadness with a springboard to renew me with His Spirit. Because of Jesus, there is always life at the end of my story.