Who here hasn’t walked a season in survival mode? A season where the days are long, our hearts are heavy and our souls weary. A season where life doesn’t stop for our grieving and our worry. Yet who among us does not desire a life living fully in our identity as a child of the King? It is surely the deepest longing of our heart and yet the world we live in seems to constantly be calling us away from that place of peace.

I have lived many years in a place of survival, and I felt constantly as if I was always waiting for that glimpse of things getting better, for the Lord to speak, or show me that I am not alone. As I sat in prayer recently it came to me that I have been missing the beauty present while looking for the perfect .

What’s interesting for me is that in those times of true strife and struggle, what felt like just breath by breath survival is where I felt closest to the Lord.

Our survival often necessitates an utter reliance on God. The paradox of being a Christian is that we crave that survival type of reliance. Though the desert is hot and stifling, we want to go back! In our survival, we seek Him, and His presence is like a golden cord from heaven that constantly keeps us connected to the Lord.

I imagine the Lord constantly by my side aware of every moment of my days. It is in this recognition that He and I have been able to grow our relationship to a point where I find myself striving, no longer just surviving.

Striving for what, for whom? I am striving for a relationship with the Lord. I realize that this feeling of thriving that I am seeking is not found in a singular moment but in a constant healthy relationship. I am blessed to have a beautiful marriage, but that relationship has taken effort, vulnerability, humility and time. Even in survival mode, this relationship thrives. Why?

I go back to connection with the Lord. It is the model for my marriage. I simply cannot strive without Him. For me, there is an offering in the striving.

We have a morning offering as part of our Catholic faith … “Oh my God, I offer you every thought, word and action of today and I beseech thee to grant me thy grace that I may not offend thee but may faithfully serve thee in all things. Amen.”

Going from survival to being fully alive is an offering. It’s a surrender. The Olympics have just passed and I think of all the planning and training these athletes did to prepare. I’d love to have control of the planning in my life. But life has a way of shaking and making my beautifully organized planner look like an air traffic control plan gone astray. What is God’s plan in all this? I have to ask Him. I must surrender. Striving has to involve surrender. It has to involve trust and it has to be simply given.

I feel like striving should be the next level or stage on our way to thriving. However, because striving is an offering, it weaves its way through each season making it a fundamental goal of the Christian life.

But some of us may sit here and think: How on Earth can I do that when some seasons look like I can’t even get out of bed?

I think of a seed hidden under the soil lying dormant. I have sunflowers planted in my garden and inevitably there are a couple seeds that wait till every other plant has bloomed and then they shoot up. It is a good reminder that even though that seed was buried, and every other seed had bloomed and was swaying in the sunshine, God was still working on that seed – and like the plan He had for that seed, He has a plan for all of us.

In Jeremiah 29:11, we read: For I know the plans I have for you, “declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

So, with our striving, we can make that offering, St. Therese style; our own little way, all for you Jesus, one breath in and one breath out.

My favorite scripture has become somewhat of an anthem for me. It is from Habakkuk 3:17-18. It says: Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. This is what faith looks like; to try to cling to His peace and continue striving in the midst of surviving. We do this while on our journey that is filled with both suffering, grace and joy.