IX. Jesus falls a third time.
“Behold the wood of the Cross!”
Pause and hold your heart and the world in your hands.
This fall no longer came as a surprise. When He found Himself on the ground again, He was no longer bewildered that His body had once again let Him down; He had come to expect it.
This acceptance made a huge difference. Because when He fell this third time, He didn’t have to figure out what just happened, as He might have done after His first fall. This time, He didn’t need to spend any of His energy resisting the creeping discouragement, as He did the second time around.
So here we go again. We know the drill by now: Get up. Pick up your cross. Keep going.
It’s okay to go on a downward spiral once in a while. It’s okay to crash—and to give yourself permission to do so as long as we make sure afterwards to pick ourselves up and keep going.
Winston Churchill famously said, “If you’re going through hell, just keep going.”
In short, just keep showing up—even if you don’t feel like it.
So just in case you feel you’re on the brink of getting unhinged today—or any other day—that’s fine. It is, after all, hard work to hope. It can be exhausting to keep the faith.
So let’s agree to go gentle on ourselves. If you need to, grant yourself the permission to take a fall, to crash, or just to be sad—even if it’s going to be for the nth time.
Just don’t stay on the ground. After a while, do what our Lord Jesus kept doing on His way to Calvary.
Get up. Pick up your cross. And keep going.
And one good reason is because the Lord will never give up on us.
Listen to this version of “Never Gonna Give You Up” (performed by Rick Astley). Make it your prayer and your promise to God and self: Never give up on yourself.
Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, and prayers below.
One reply on “The Ninth Station”
Thank you for never giving up on me Lord♥️