Day 363

I’ve had some things on my mind over the last few days, and today, I can really feel them sitting heavy in my spirit. I don’t know exactly who needs to read this, but I have a feeling someone does.

I don’t know who made us feel like we have to show up before God as this perfect, shiny, put-together version of ourselves. Like we have to clean up our lives, get our emotions under control, find the right words, and have everything figured out before we can come to Him. But that’s simply not true.

You don’t have to have it all together to go to God. You can take the mess, the disappointment, the frustration, the unanswered questions, and every emotion you have been trying to keep tucked away, and bring it all to Him.

You can sit with God and say, “I’m disappointed. I’m not happy with where things are right now. I thought my life would look different. I thought things would have happened by now. I thought I’d be further ahead. I thought I’d be married, have children, have the house, have the life I pictured for myself. I thought things would feel different by this point.”

Whatever that looks like for you, you can tell Him.

You don’t have to pretend you’re okay when you’re not. You don’t have to feel guilty for being disappointed or wonder if expressing your frustrations makes you ungrateful. You can be grateful for what God has given you and still wish certain things in your life were different. Those two feelings can exist at the same time.

He already knows your heart. Before you were even born, He knew you. He knows every detail about you, even the number of hairs on your head. He knows your past, your present, and your future. He sees the entire picture while we are often trying to make sense of one tiny piece of it.

And I think sometimes we forget that He actually wants us to talk to Him about all of it.

I also want to talk about something I’ve heard my entire life: “God gives His toughest battles to His strongest soldiers.”

I used to say that all the time. I believed it. But lately, I’ve found myself looking at that differently.

Because honestly, I’m tired of being strong.

I’m tired of feeling like I always have to be the strong one, the one who figures it out, the one who keeps going, the one who carries everything and somehow makes it look okay.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the lesson isn’t that we are supposed to keep proving how strong we are. Maybe it’s that we were never meant to carry everything on our own.

God doesn’t ask us to be strong every second of every day. He asks us to trust Him. To surrender the things we cannot control. To hand Him the anxiety, the uncertainty, the disappointment, and the burdens that feel too heavy for us to carry.

There’s a verse in Matthew 11:28 that says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Notice that He doesn’t say, “Come to me once you’ve figured everything out.” He doesn’t say, “Come to me when you’re happy, when you’re successful, or when you have nothing to complain about.”

He says, come to me when you’re weary. Come when you’re burdened. Come when you’re tired.

Think about the poem Footprints in the Sand. The message is that during the hardest moments, when we see only one set of footprints, those are the moments God was carrying us. Sometimes we are so focused on trying to carry ourselves that we forget we have someone who wants to carry us through it.

And listen, I’ve had some conversations with the Lord. I’ve hashed things out with Him. I’ve told Him when I’m frustrated, when I’m disappointed, when I don’t understand something, and when I wish things were different. Maybe that sounds strange to some people, but I believe that’s part of having a real relationship with Him.

A relationship isn’t built on pretending. It’s built on honesty, trust, communication, and showing up. And that includes showing up when your heart is heavy and you don’t have the right words.

So if you’ve been feeling like you can’t go to God because your life is too messy, because you’re struggling, because you’re disappointed, or because you feel like you have nothing positive to say, I hope you hear this:

He wants to hear it all.

The good, the bad, and the ugly. The prayers of gratitude and the prayers that sound more like questions. The dreams you’re still waiting for, the things you’re grieving, the things you’re afraid to say out loud, and the things you don’t even know how to explain.

You don’t have to hide any of it from Him.

Whether you feel behind in life, completely lost, overwhelmed, or even like everything is finally falling into place, take it all to God. Don’t just bring Him your Sunday-morning version of yourself. Bring Him the real you.

Lay it at His feet. Tell Him how you feel. Ask Him for help. Ask Him to guide you, give you peace, and carry you when you don’t have the strength to carry yourself.

And remember, you don’t have to earn your way into His presence by being perfect.

God doesn’t need you to have a perfect life before you come to Him. He wants a relationship with you right in the middle of the life you’re living.

So take it all to Him. He’s already listening.

Signed, Paulina.