You Can't.

For whatever you are going through today, whatever makes you say, "I can't _____."

Know that you are right. You can't.

You can't stop thinking about your weight. You can't just "know" that you are beautiful. You can't stop sleeping with your boyfriend. You can't stop watching pornography. You can't make enough money to pay your bills. You can't get out of bed and face that person today. You can't make it through this breakup. You can't make it through this divorce. You can't overcome your depression. You can't.

There is no solution, no formula, no magic number or word or "thing" that can move you from "I can't" to "I can and I did...now look how far I've come!!"

And yet we all know someone who did. We do know someone who isn't binging or purging anymore. We do know someone who is abundantly full of life without sex being part of the equation. We do know someone who is sober from pornography for 2 years. We do know someone who paid rent last month when it wasn't possible. We do know someone who made it through a break-up worse than this one and is now in the best place of her life. We do know someone who is divorced and still fulfilled in their single life. We do know someone who has overcome severe depression and extreme grief, and now knows joy and contentment and peace.

So what happened? What happened when "they couldn't _______."

Christ moved.

These are not physical battles against our bodies, our beauty, our eyes, our skin, our genitals, our brain, our blood-pumping hearts. These are battles of the soul, where an enemy is daily waging war against our value, our peace, our worth, our contentment, our comfort, our belonging, our love, and our LIFE.

What you don't need is world-acknowledgement that you are the most beautiful woman on the earth. You need the heart-belief that you are created to be beautiful and have inherent value despite what just-as-broken people may tell you.

What you don't need is to white-knuckle it against sex and pornography. You need the heart-belief that you are not alone and that you are deeply truly loved, and that your Father is proud that you are his child, despite how it feels.

What you don't need is one more person telling you to just be happy because you have a pretty good life and you should be ashamed of your unwarranted depression. You need the heart-belief that your spirit was covered in dirt and pain before Christ himself fought the greatest war of all time to present your spirit before God as pure, complete, and wholly loved, even if you can't get out of bed. And that God will never see you as anything other and pure and valuable. He will wait for you.

What you don't need is one more sermon on how pre-marital sex is sinful. You need the heart-belief that Jesus hasn't left your side a single moment and is willing to do a supernatural work in you the very moment you begin to slip into behavior you feel you cannot control. You need the heart-belief that God never forgot about you, and that there is a man who will love who you are more than he will love sleeping with you.

This is not a physical war, and there is no physical solution. This is a war for your heart, because there is nothing in all of existence that is more valuable to God than the heart of a man or woman. This is a war that we cannot win unless we let Jesus fight it for us.

I was the girl who couldn't stop sleeping with her boyfriend. I was the girl in the ER having a panic attack that she couldn't control. I was the girl who thought the earth would swallow me up because the break-up was too painful. I was the girl who skipped meals and hated to see herself in the mirror every morning. I was the girl who watched pornography because I had no other way to cope. I was the girl who couldn't get out of bed and was numb from the anti-depressants. I was the girl who lost her family and could not see a future for myself because the grief was too heavy.

I was the girl who couldn't.

And I am the girl that learned that Jesus could.