Part Two: Everyday Struggles

Hey guys, hope y'all's past couple weeks has been going good. Alright, so this post is the second of three parts to a little series called Everyday Struggles. As I said in the first post, this one is going to be from the point of view of an adult. For those of y'all who go to King's Ridge, this is from Mrs. Volz. For those of you who don't, she is an English teacher at my school who, without a doubt, has an influence on everyone she meets. Mrs. Volz is one person who truly allows God to shine through her as a teacher and a mentor. She loves what she does, but even a life that looks as good as her's from the outside is still filled with struggles that she faces everyday and has to take them on like the rest of us.

Being a teacher, Mrs. Volz is constantly faced with the struggle of having to balance God, her family, and all of the papers that are constantly needing to be graded. She told me that one everyday struggle she faces is having to prioritize everything that is going on in her life, such as school and stuff at home. Grading can pile up as we can all imagine, but she says that she is always making sure she is putting people first, because the grading can wait. Anyone who has ever talked to her can definitely attest to this, and agree that she does a very good job. Another struggle that she, along with everyone else is the world faces, is temptation. Everyone has something or multiple things in his/her life that is tempting, and it can seem impossible to overcome. For Mrs. Volz, it is focusing on seeing the best in everyone that she meets. Trying to look at everyone else like the Lord would look at them, and loving them like God loves her is what she strives for, but as humans, we can all agree that sometimes this is hard to do. We all know a couple people who just seem like they are always getting on our nerves, but we can never forget the fact that we are human as well, and no one is perfect, so we shouldn't expect them to be. Moving on from the little struggles, Mrs. Volz went through something that completely changed her day to day life. Last spring, she had to get back surgery. As a teacher, this meant that she was going to miss a lot of school, and since teaching is something that she truly loves, you can imagine how hard it was for her to miss so much of it. She admitted that it was probably the most difficult time in her life (all 29 years of it is what she would tell you). Because she is someone who is so independent, the hardest thing for her was completely relying on others during the recovery process. She found that not being able to do everyday things for herself was the most frustrating part of it all. She claims that during that time, she truly felt God "working on [her] heart". She says He surrounded her with people who were so good to her. The process definitely helped her with her patience, as it has been a very long process and she says even through it all, she still may never get back to where she was physically before it all happened. When faced with the tough task of answering why she thinks struggles happen to people with such a strong faith, she said that it is probably to test the strength of the faith. Going through these struggles can be seen as a test, and especially an opportunity to bring you closer to God. People who are going through these trials can serve as examples to others, and allow God to shine through them. She says that the most important thing to her is not focusing on the problems that she is still facing, but instead keeping a graceful heart and looking back and realizing how far she has come.

Mrs. Volz's story is a great example of how even people with extremely strong faith go through trials almost every day. Even if you are someone who does not have a very strong Christian faith. or any faith at all, the struggles will still find their way into your life. How you get through these is all determined on what kind of attitude you are keeping through the whole thing, and just staying true to yourself, and knowing that you will be able to make it through is the most important thing you can do. Hopefully this post meant something to everyone, and I hope you come back to read the next post about the struggles that teenagers face day to day.

 

Part One: Everyday Struggles

Hey guys, hope everything has been going good. So this is my second post, and it's going to be part of a little three post series. The series is going to be all about struggles that everyday people face in life, but specifically from a Christian person's point of view. The first one is going to be from my point of view, the second post will be from the point of view from an adult, and the third from students in high school.

So this first post is going to be from me, and if you know me, you most likely know that I had Tommy John surgery. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's elbow reconstructive surgery that is mostly common with baseball players, and mainly pitchers, which I am. I talked about it in the first post, so most of y'all know how if affected me.

Here is a pretty good visual representation of how I felt sitting on the bench during rehab vs. actually being a part of the second championship. Obviously, as you can tell, it was not easy for me, but the wait was well worth it. I'm going to talk about what exactly got me through the longest year and a half of my life.

Without the help of family and friends, I would have never been able to get through this as easily as I did. Obviously it wasn't very easy at first, as the picture shows, but after time it started to get easier. I had the constant push from my friends, especially the baseball players who didn't mind showing off their rings. I wanted to get back out there and be better than ever so I could have a ring for myself. 

Obviously my friends and family were a big part of it because I was constantly around them. But the one thing that helped my recovery more than anything was without a doubt my faith. My favorite verse, John 16:33, was the biggest push that I had the whole time. I went through the whole recovery process knowing that God had a plan for me, and to just be patient, because good would come of it. This was a huge worldly struggle, but I had no worries because as the verse says, Jesus has overcome the world, and I had nothing to worry about. Although I could have been freaking out, worrying if I was ever going to recover properly, I knew that I just had to keep my faith and God would carry me through the struggle. If I didn't have the faith that I did at the time, there is no way I would have gotten through the process and kept my sanity. Some people reading this may not think the surgery sounds like as big a deal as I am making it. For those of you who are thinking that, let me put it this way. Think of the one thing you love to do most in the world, then imagine someone taking it away for an entire year. Almost at the end of that year, imagine that one thing that you had taken away becomes very successful and you get to watch happen exactly what you've been dreaming about for your entire life happen right before your eyes. It's like you buy a lottery ticket everyday of your life, but you go to buy one and someone tells you that you can't buy one that day. Then the person right behind you buys one and wins the jackpot right in front of your face, that's pretty much what the whole experience felt like. Because of my faith though, I was able to be happy for all of my friends and knew that God would carry me and put me out on the baseball field again and give me a chance to win another championship. 

The biggest lesson I learned through the whole thing was to not take anything for granted, because you never know when something is going to end, or even just put on pause for a while. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope that you join me next time to read about the struggles that are happening in the lives of adults.