Sometimes life is hard.

Sometimes it rips you apart, and having flair for the dramatic notwithstanding, it kicks your butt and knocks you out cold.

Work gets hard, and marriage gets hard, and raising these kids?  It gets hard.

Life. is. hard. sometimes.

And sometimes, hard is all the time.  Hard is the new norm.  And during those times, giving in is pretty simple.  Not going for it is simple.  Walking out is simple.  Leaving, quitting, breaking, shutting down, is simple.

Perfectly Imperfect | You, Me, & A Road

I don’t wanna be a quitter though.  Yeah, I said “wanna.”  I don’t wanna be a leaver or a walker (no walking dead references here), or a pouter or a whiner.

Faith tells me God wants us to push through, to keep going.  To Trust.  Sometimes, though, He feels far away.  Easy feels far away.  And while I know there is this Presence there, pushing me and holding me and not letting me down, I grow tired.  I’m weary and weak and selfish.

I quit on my husband or my kids or my work.  I quit being me because it’s simple.  Hard becomes the norm.

And out of the blue, around the corner, the tiniest part of the weight lifts.  The heaviness is 1.2 pounds lighter, and I breathe.  I see the road ahead, and it looks long and windy and unsure and hard.

But it’s a road.  The dirty, rocky path is a start.

Perfectly Imperfect | You, Me, & A Road

And being flipping stubborn doesn’t hurt either.  Keep trudging, friends.  Walk down the road, and put one foot in front of the other.  I’ll be right there with you.

P.S. these shots are behind the scenes from our holiday look book with our friends at Cotton Creek–stay tuned.  Going to be amazing.