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Fighting My Battles

September 2, 2020 | DAYRIN PEREZ

woman having a panic attack in public
“It’s so easy to let these things circulate in our heads and make us doubt ourselves. Then we find ourselves in this daily battle.”

I think by now most children have started the 2020-2021 school year. It’s back to early mornings. Back to some sort of structure. Back to the craziness of figuring out how to juggle kids, school and work. It’s only been a few days of school and those feelings that arose back in March when the world shut down have already started to come back. Am I doing this right? Are my children feeling ignored? Is he understanding his teacher? When am I going to cook dinner? I mean you name it, I’ve felt it.

We all have feelings, struggles that we confront on a daily basis. It’s so easy to let these things circulate in our heads and make us doubt ourselves. Then we find ourselves in this daily battle. As I was praying on the first day of school this verse from the Gospel stood out to me “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” (Luke 4:18). I continued my prayer using a Daily Reflections book by Pope Francis, “We must prepare ourselves for the spiritual combat. It is impossible to preach the Gospel without this spiritual battle, a daily battle against sadness, against bitterness, against pessimism; a daily battle” (Address, June 17, 2013).

I mean talk about God sending me a message. These daily battles are ok. These daily battles can help us grow closer to Jesus. I took these feeling that were coming up for me to prayer. I named and listed all these battles that were rising up in me because even though God knows my battles it is powerful to name them. Once I named them I went back to pray with “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. I asked God to continue to give me strength to overcome these daily battles/feelings with his joy. Now let me be clear, I also decided that I needed to make sure that I was allowing time for myself to recharge

So I challenge you, take some time to pray and name whatever battles are stirring up for you. Ask God to give you the strength to overcome these struggles with his joy and believe that the Spirit of the Lord is with you.