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Abby Banks is a wife, mom, author, and advocate. Her youngest son, Wyatt, became paralyzed at 7 months old, and Abby’s world turned upside down. In the years since Wyatt’s diagnosis, she and her family have lived by the words “love him anyway,” which is also the title of her book about their journey.

We talk about the journey she and her family took into a new normal, living with a child whose special needs impact daily life. Abby shares about her personal struggles and victories, learning to become comfortable with who she is in the life she leads.

You’ll want to grab a copy of her book Love Him Anyway: Finding Hope in the Hardest Places.

Connect with Abby:

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BeautyCounter – Angie Eubanks

What does it really mean to follow Christ? In my 20 years as a Christian, I’ve seen how much confusion there is surrounding the lifestyle and choices Christians make. There are as many opinions as there are believers.

It seems there are questions about everything — what to drink, where to go, how to dress, how to worship. The role of women, the type of church to attend, whether salvation is forever, and whether Christians should watch R-rated movies.

What it means to be a believer and follower can be really confusing, especially for brand new Christians.

That’s why I wrote Follow: A 28 Day Devotional for Understanding Your Faith. I wanted to help new believers navigate some of the questions they have, and I wanted to help them focus on four major areas of following Jesus — Salvation, the Bible, Worship, and Prayer.

In this book, we spend one week on each of those topics, looking at what Scripture teaches and what confusion might arise. Each day’s reading starts with Scripture and ends with reflection and prayer, and one of my greatest goals is to help people establish the daily habit of spending time focused on their relationship with Christ.

If you have questions or confusion about these topics, if you are a new believer, or if you know someone who just began following Jesus, order a copy today. You can get yours here! If you serve in a ministry and would like to order multiple copies, contact me and I’ll let you know how to order in bulk for a discount.

Niki is a Brit in the USA, a rectal (yes, rectal) cancer survivor, pastor’s wife, tea drinker and teller of bad jokes. She’s all about meeting you when life’s not fair so you can breathe again and offers encouragement, practical resources and a large dollop of reality on her website. She’d love to connect with you there if she can’t hug you in person.

Her work has appeared in Christian Today, RELEVANT, Woman to Woman (Premier Radio), ForEveryMom, and Living By Design Ministries. When she’s not speaking, writing, running trails with her Doodles, or failing to keep up with her three teenagers, you can find her with a nice cup of tea trying to figure out which remote control actually turns the TV on.

Grab her FREE Audio Download How to Handle Anything Life Throws at You, and discover three strategies to give you the trust and confidence to thrive, not just survive, right where you are.

Connect with Niki:

Website www.nikihardy.com

Instagram @niki.hardy

Facebook @NikiHardyauthor 

Scalding water beat on my back as I rested my forehead on the shower wall. The tears falling down my cheeks mixed with the water from the shower, and one was as hot as the other.

I didn’t want to cry — I tried to resolve that I wouldn’t — but I’m one of those people who cries when she’s angry, and this day, I was angry.

I was angry at God.

Sometimes my prayers are generalities, like “Lord, would you keep my kids safe today?” and some are more specific. The prayer I had been praying and keeping in the back of my mind for a couple of years was very specific. I had asked God to grant one very small request — a request that, in my mind, He had no reason not to grant. It was small in the grand scheme of things, a minor blip on most people’s radar, but one that mattered a whole lot to me.

But He said no.

He said no, and to be blunt and very non-spiritual sounding, I was royally ticked off.

And this is why. He said no, and He didn’t explain why. He said no, and then He was silent about it. He said no, and Him saying yes was very important to me.

His no felt like a slap in the face.

Brene Brown writes about the stories we tell ourselves, a phrase I’ve come to love, and her teachings on this come back to me often. She teaches that whenever we’re in an emotional state, our feelings tend to drive our perception, and our facts tend to be clouded by our feelings.

I know this to be true.

That day in the shower, I told myself stories. I told myself that God didn’t answer my prayer because He didn’t love me enough to do so. He didn’t answer my prayer because it was too insignificant for Him to even pay attention to.

I was too insignificant.

Brown writes, “Storytelling helps us all impose order on chaos—including emotional chaos. When we’re in pain, we create a narrative to help us make sense of it. This story doesn’t have to be based on any real information.”

As I sobbed over God’s no that day, the story I listened to was not based on any real information. But it felt real. And that’s what mattered.

Here’s what I’ve learned as I’ve walked with Christ: He can handle us feeling what we feel, and He can handle us sharing it with Him.

I told him that day exactly how I was feeling, and even though our conversation didn’t feel like a prayer, that’s exactly what it was. We’ve been conditioned to think that prayer is formal and scripted, beautiful and tidy.

It’s often not — or at least, it shouldn’t be.

When I’m having conversations with my husband, they’re often messy and ugly. They’re certainly not scripted, and they sometimes get heated. I share with him the truth of how I’m feeling — rational or not.

Why should it be any different with God?

Certainly there should be a reverence, and always there should be a remembrance of who God is. But never should there be a withholding. He can handle our truths. He can handle our feelings. And not only can He — but He wants to.

I can say to God, “I love you and I trust you, but I don’t understand. I don’t get this, and I don’t like it.”

An admission of hurt or an acknowledgment of disappointment does not equal blasphemy.

I believe God honors honesty. And let’s hope He does, because I cannot pray any more beautiful, meaningless prayers. I can only be honest, saying when I’m sad, sharing when I’m upset, and questioning when I can’t understand. I want my relationship with my God to be real, and real, in my eyes, isn’t tidied up and sanitized. It isn’t fake and superficial. It’s raw. It’s truthful. It’s sometimes being angry and crying in the shower.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/brene-brown-rising-strong-excerpt#ixzz5JAfL6ZjU

I wish I could remember where I first heard it, this truth that’s been rocking my world.

I don’t know if it was on a podcast or in a book, on my TV or from my friend’s mouth. All I know is that I somehow jotted it down as a note in my phone, and I’ve been looking at it ever since.

Look for the lie.

Why haven’t I always done this? To have it spelled out like that makes it look like the most obvious thing to do. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, identify the lie that says you have to do everything well and all at once. When you’re feeling like a terrible mother, look at the lie that says feeding your kids fast food will ruin their health forever. When you become convinced you’ll never succeed in your career, see the lie that says one bad day means a bad forever.

Look for the lie.

Because when you do, you’ll begin to see lies everywhere. And here’s why — Satan is the prince of this world, and his native language is lies. He naturally spews untruths, and since this is his dominion, his lies are this world’s language.

Look for the lie.

You think, “I’m ugly,” and the lie is that your outer shell is what matters most.

You hear, “You’re not good enough,” and the lie is that your identity is your performance.

You believe, “I’m the only one who feels this way,” and the lie is that you are an anomaly in this world.

Do you see how the lies begin to lose their power when you call them what they are?

Here’s what I know to be true after all these years of struggle: every wrong belief I’ve internalized is a lie contrary to what my Creator says. The lies I’ve accepted as my truth are evidence of my continuing need for Christ. And what’s more, they are evidence of my need to repent. My believing lies over truth is sin, plain and simple.

Like the demon-possessed child’s father, I cry, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Look for the lie.

Today, in this moment, my eyes are searching high and low. My ears are straining with discernment. My spirit is alert to subtle whispers.

The lies will come, but they will not be allowed to stay.

Look for the lie.

“Did you see where kids were Snapchatting during the shooting?” my sister asked. “They showed the bodies on the ground.”

No, I didn’t. Thank goodness. But I am not surprised.

In a world where anyone with a phone is a news source and where everyone with social media can become a pseudo-celebrity, it is no shock that what was once sacred is snapped instead.

The norm these days is sharing it all.

We don’t think twice about sharing pictures of our anniversary gifts on Facebook, and we share our worship services in 30 second Instagram story snippets. Our emotions spill out on our social media, and what ought to remain private is posted for public consumption.

I am guilty, too — don’t think I’m condemning anyone.

Just today, I wanted to screenshot what I read in my Bible and post it for my followers to see. I felt the need to show what God was teaching me personally to people who are called my followers. (Let’s just analyze that sentence for a second, friends.) My instinct was to take private revelations and make them public.

What does sacred really mean, and is anything sacred anymore? It’s a question I keep asking. What in my life is worthy of deep reverence and respect, and what should I hold so dearly to my heart that I don’t need to show it to the world? And when I do post for the world to see, what is my motive?

I wish there were easy answers.

I was telling someone just yesterday that my work is a constant battle in contradictions for me. It is intensely private, but I share it through social media. I wrestle with spiritual concepts privately so I can teach them and encourage other people publicly. It is good work that I know I am called to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t question daily how to do it well.

So how do I balance the sacred and the shared? How do any of us?

I don’t know that. But I do know this:

• We have to question ourselves and our motivations.
• We have to set boundaries for ourselves.
• We have to keep our pride in check.
• We have to respect anyone affected by our posts.
• We have to ask God for revelation.
• We have to sometimes put our phones away and just rest in the sacred, soaking in the experience.
• We have to realize that posts and pictures aren’t the only proof that something mattered.

Today, I will leave you with a challenge, one I’m taking myself. Keep some things sacred. Mark some boundaries for what you’ll share, and give yourself the freedom not to let the world in on everything you’re doing. Live without the compulsion to share.

Don’t sacrifice what’s sacred for a need to be seen.

Goodness, I wanted to be like her.

I somehow started following her through Instagram, that wonderful and terrible social media app that lets us peer into the lives of people we don’t even know. She is a lifestyle and fitness guru, one of those people who is gorgeous and seems to turn everything she touches to gold.

She has a pretty large following on social media, and it’s easy to see why. Her tiny body is perfectly toned, and her posts about the workouts she does show why that’s the case. She exercises all the time, even going to the gym after her kids are in bed. In her world, it seems, there’s no such thing as being too tired to work out.

She only eats healthy foods, or that’s all she shows, and her meal-prepped lunches look like a personal chef prepared them.

Her hair is long and blonde, perfectly wavy and always done just so.

She has a radiant white smile, her perfectly straight teeth glowing in every photo she posts.

And I wanted to be like her. That’s such a 7th grade thing of me to say, I know. But in her pictures she looks like everything I’m not, and I found myself privately thinking I really wanted to be like her. I wanted to look like her, with muscles in all the right places and a physique that looked great even after kids. I wanted her perfect hair and her perfect teeth. I wanted to run a successful business like she does, and I wanted to have it all together like I thought she did.

But the longer I followed her, the more I began to realize that she was not exactly what she was posting.

First, she admitted the plastic surgery she’s had done. Her top features really aren’t hers, and neither is the wrinkle-free face that looks so beautiful. She’s had her stomach worked on, so the flat belly I’ve envied isn’t really hers, either.

Her teeth? They’re capped.

And she has extensions in her beautiful hair.

Those long eyelashes? They’re fake, too.

I’m not telling you this to shame her or to say she’s wrong for any of it.

I’m telling you this to let you know I found myself wanting to be like someone who isn’t real. I wanted to be like someone who didn’t really exist.

You would think that by now, a woman in her mid-thirties like me would know better than to wish for what someone else has. You would think I’d know that the grass isn’t always greener and that pictures on Instagram don’t tell the whole story.

But you would be wrong.

Nearly every day, I fall into the trap of believing I need what someone else has or that I should be what someone else is. But I forget that I don’t really know who they are or what they have. All I know is what I see, and what I see has very often been doctored.

We all doctor what we show the world, don’t we? We smile when we’re sad. We pretend to have money when we don’t. We say we’re fine when we’re not. We want the picture the world sees of us to be flawless and beautiful, so we go to great lengths to hide and change who we really are.

Because at our core, we don’t like who we really are. We are insecure in our true selves. And we believe the real us just isn’t enough.

So we make it up and fake it up and pretend to be someone we’re not. And we’re all going around wanting to be the fake versions of real people who think they have to hide their flaws to be loved.

We all have flaws. But we don’t have to fake it to be loved.

Wear the makeup if it makes you feel better. Extend your eyelashes and whiten your teeth. But don’t do it because you hate the real you that you are. Don’t feel that you have to be anyone other than yourself.

And when you find yourself envying someone like I did, look beyond their beautiful smile. Look further than the picture-perfect posts. Remind yourself that what you see is not all there is.

It’s not with you, and it’s not with them, either.

My life looks nothing like the one I planned.

My life doesn’t look like most of my friends’ lives.

I am different from most of the other moms in my circle.

And different is hard.

In fact, I’ve come to realize this about myself and my pattern of thinking: I often don’t just think of myself as different. I think of myself as abnormal. I think of my reality as a Plan B.

I was married once before, and that marriage ended in divorce. So for a while, I was a divorced, single mom of two. Then I met the man who changed my world, and I remarried. So now I am a formerly divorced, single mom who is remarried. My children live with me, but they still see their dad often and spend a good bit of time with him.

I am so grateful this is true.

But my situation is a rarity in my circle. Even though the divorce rate in our country is at 50%, it is not directly around me. So I am different.

Don’t misunderstand, though. I am ridiculously happy in my life now. My husband is the best man I know, and he showers us with affection. He goes out of his way to take care of us and make sure we feel secure. I never dreamed my life would be this full.

But my life is different. I am not like the people I love most. My differences are not always visible, but I always feel them. Holidays in my house look very different from those of most people I know, and even everyday situations are tainted with the fallout of the past.

For a long time, I wasn’t aware of how I was thinking. I wasn’t conscious of the thought process that said different is wrong. I wouldn’t have verbalized that I felt abnormal or that I no longer thought of myself as a real mom.

But here is what I’m learning. The thoughts we keep inside become poison that slowly kills us. Lies we never expose to the truth become the dominant voices in our lives. And struggles we never admit become strongholds we can’t escape.

Yes, life for me is different than it is for you. But your life is different in its own way, too, and you might think of yourself as abnormal for entirely different reasons.

Your child has a learning disability.

Your children were adopted.

You have a disease that limits your parenting.

Your child has a physical deformity or an emotional disorder.

Can we all just admit this truth? Everybody has their something.

Something about you makes you feel different, abnormal, wrong, or living a Plan B. I have a friend in surgery right this minute, undergoing a hysterectomy that will prevent her from ever having biological children. The enemy will try to convince her that a secondary plan, a Plan B, is all that remains for her. He will want her to believe she is different and therefore wrong.

I have lived under the burden of such thoughts. And when not confronted, they are debilitating.

It is uncomfortable to face the depths of our darkest thoughts. It is painful to confront the underlying emotions that affect our everyday lives. But when we don’t, we begin to feel ashamed, alone, defective, and hopeless. Our thought lives contaminate every part of who we are.

What are you believing about yourself today?

Allow yourself to answer that question.

And as you do, will you remember this?

Nothing about your life catches your Creator off-guard. Nothing is an “oops,” an “uh-oh,” or a “What are we going to do with this?”. Nothing. He has seen the entirety of your life, and He is weaving it all together into an unbelievably beautiful picture of grace and redemption. Every situation and every circumstance is an opportunity to grow closer to Him and to become more like Him.

He will do more in the differences of your life than the parts that fit the mold.

He will. He has for me.

But we have to allow Him to, and that begins with admitting how we feel.

If one of the spiritual gifts is having a pity party, then the Holy Spirit blessed me immensely.

But for real.

Last night, I was feeling sorry for myself, wishing something had gone differently and beating myself up for not knowing ahead of time exactly what I should have done. Then the feeling sorry for myself morphed into being envious of someone else, and before I knew it, I was just the most pitiful little whiney-baby you’ve ever seen.

Over nothing important.

I felt like a failure, but the truth is that I didn’t really fail.

I felt less capable than someone else, but the truth is that I’m not.

I felt I should be doing more and doing it better, but those are just words I told myself.

In actuality, I’m doing OK. I’m doing better than I thought I was in the midst of that pity party.

Jon Acuff writes in his new book, Finish, “That’s the thing about failure. It’s loud. Progress, on the other hand, is quiet. It whispers. Perfectionism screams failure and hides progress.”

I have always lived with the tantalizing illusion of perfection mocking me. The perfect body, the perfect home, the perfect kids and perfect marriage. The perfect answers, the perfect friendships, the perfect job and perfect ministry. And when perfection stayed out of reach, the mocking cry of “failure” rang loudly in my ear.

Who am I kidding? It still does.

The thought of failure is loudest, and the reality of progress just whispers.

But you know what? I’m doing better at most things than I think I am. And so are you. Let’s cut ourselves some slack. Let’s push back the pursuit of perfection and welcome the promise of progress.

When you decide to write words for the internet to read, you have to develop a thick skin. People are at their bravest behind the anonymity of their keyboards, and they write words that can sting.

I wrote a guest post once where I mentioned Satan deceiving us, and the comments were swift and sharp. I was made fun of for believing there’s an enemy, and I was mocked for blaming my problems on an unseen devil. And I guess I get it. If you’re not a Christian and don’t believe in the God of the Bible, it’s hard to believe in the devil of it, too.

But I do. 100%.

I believe in him because I’ve encountered him, and I know he’s real because I’ve been at the mercy of his attacks.

Including yesterday.

The story actually begins a few days ago, at church of all places. As I was serving in an area that needed extra help, I heard a whisper in my spirit – “You’re profoundly different.” Those words echoed in the silence of my mind. The words were not uplifting or positive, encouraging me to stand out in a crowd. They weren’t praising me for my individuality. No, they were condemning and cold, pointing out why my life is not (and never will be) like everyone else’s.

The funny thing about how Satan works is that he often takes an element of truth and twists it to serve his own purposes. He is the father of lies, so he always injects a lie into a truth. Yes, my life is very different from other people’s. My family is different, and my mothering can’t be the same. I know this, and it’s been a struggle for me to accept. And Satan knows that. So he used it.

I tried to shake it off, to acknowledge that Satan was trying to work against me. I recognized it for what it was, a subtle attack from my greatest enemy. I called it what it was, a lie, and I tried to go on with my life.

But as is often the case with Satan, he was relentless. He didn’t give up.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling weary. You know how that sometimes happens? You just wake up with a feeling of heaviness, and you don’t necessarily know why?

My husband was out of town, so loneliness was creeping in, I hadn’t slept well the night before, and because of a nasty case of poison ivy, I’d been taking lots of medicine. That combination opened up an area of vulnerability, and my enemy pounced. Like a roaring lion, he sought someone to devour.

And for two hours, I was it.

I work from home, so after spinning my wheels writing words that went nowhere and struggling to keep my eyes open, I decided to take a break. I lay my head back and tried to sleep for a few minutes, thinking physical rest would help my weary spirit. I hoped a short nap would rejuvenate me.

Instead, I entered a spiritual battle. And I don’t say that lightly.

In the quiet of my house and the battlefield of my mind, I encountered one of the toughest fights against my enemy I’ve had in recent days. Over and over, he brought to mind my failures. My weaknesses. My shortcomings and insecurities. He mocked me with the success of others and whispered that I would always fail. He reminded me of my unfulfilled dreams, and he showed me others who are living them instead. He let me know that I am unwanted and ignored, undeserving and untalented. He showed me how I am always the last choice, forever the one forgotten. He brought back conversations that hurt, rejections that ruined. Past hurts and present fears. Real hopes and imagined slights. Lies and broken promises and the pain of being overlooked.

For two hours, I endured what I can only describe as an onslaught. I wept and raged, prayed and pleaded. I felt as if I were being pulled into a black hole.

And I think this very type of experience is what Christians rarely want to discuss. We want to put on our religious facades and pretend we’re always on the mountaintop. We want to share our beautiful blessings, and we want to smile for the viewing public. We somehow think following Christ should exempt us from these struggles, and we convince ourselves to keep them very quiet. We don’t want to admit that our lives are just hard sometimes, and we want everyone to think we’re doing just fine.

But sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Sometimes we are tempted in the wilderness. Sometimes we feel forsaken and forgotten, and sometimes we’re in the midst of very real spiritual battles.

Satan attacks, and he attacks all of us. And when we fail to talk about it, he has the advantage. We give him the upper hand when we act as if he’s not real.

He is real.

And we are his target.

Yesterday was a really hard day for me. The spiritual battle left me feeling drained and exhausted. It made me realize anew how powerless I am without the Holy Spirit working on my behalf. It made me internalize even more the truth that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12).

The onslaught didn’t last forever. But for the hours it did, it was brutal. As I cried, I claimed the blood of Christ over my mind, and as I prayed, I asked him to capture my thoughts and bring them into the obedience of his truth. My deliverance didn’t come immediately. But it did come. Slowly, the attack lessened, and eventually, the attack began to wane.

Satan has ultimately been defeated by our Savior. But for now, he remains the ruler of this world. For eternity, Satan has been cast from the presence of God. But for now, he fights against God’s people. Satan cannot have those who are saved. But for now, he will continue to try.

He tried really hard yesterday to have control of my mind. He tried really hard to keep me in a place of hopelessness and defeat. He tried really hard to win a victory in my life.

But, as always, he was ultimately defeated. As always, the Word of God won out. And as always, God showed up for his child.

Praise his name.