You’ve Been Here Before

Lived experiences serve as monuments to life conquered.

So I am on an exercise program as part of a fitness challenge. It is a program I have done before, and it yielded great results. As I shared in a recent blog, I feel like I am back to square one on the motivation track, and, as part of that, I find myself doing the same program once again.

The other day, I found myself in the dizzying swirl of trying to tidy up, keep up with my sweet and energetic little person and her school work, keep up with the energy of my overly enthusiastic dog, and get some of my own work done. As I was tiredly pulling laundry out of the dryer when I realized I still needed to get in my workout. I let out a brief sigh. “Man,” I said to myself. “I’m not sure I can do this.” Unbidden, a soft, assuring reply came back to me Yeah, you can. You’ve been here before. You can do it. It startled me because it came so effortlessly without the usual mental gymnastics of trying to encourage myself and build myself up. “That’s right. I have been here. I have done this before. It can be done again.”

Reflecting, this is the purpose of testifying. Revelation 12:11 describes those who have overcome as doing so by the blood and sacrifice of the Son of God and through the power of their testimony. You see this reflected in different Biblical accounts of individuals who, when petitioning God in prayer, did so by reflecting upon the many things God had done to deliver in the past, such as in Nehemiah 9. As it has been said, He’s done it before. He’ll do it again.

The things that have happened in my life, good or bad, have shaped this character of mine. It has shaped who I am as a person. And the simple fact is, as I stand her living in breathing and in my right mind (well, most of the time), I am an overcomer. There are battles in life I know that I have been through, and thankfully, with God’s help, I have survived them. Why should I stand in fear? He’s done it before. He’ll do it again. I have been here before.