009 If You’re Struggling, It Means You’re Trying
I had lunch with a friend recently, and we talked a lot about parenting. Not the polished kind — the kind that feels raw and stretching and holy all at once. It felt like a reckoning.
This has been a season of really hard parenting for my wife and I. The kind where you feel the gap between who you want to be and who you are in the moment. The kind where you’re surviving, hoping for a taste of thriving.
And yet… I’m starting to see that sometimes struggling is the evidence that you’re pursuing what truly matters.
Struggle is often what alignment feels like when it’s building.
It takes surrender.
It takes dying to self.
It takes vision, consistency, patience, and the slow work of showing up again and again and again.
My friend reminded me of something simple and humbling: kids test us because they’re checking the limits of our love. They’re trying to see if we’ll still be there. Still steady. Still embracing. Still interested in them.
And as he said it, I couldn’t help but see myself in the same pattern — testing the limits of God’s love, only to find He never pulls away. He forgives, corrects, embraces, and remains.
That’s who I want to be for my children: a strong, loving, consistent presence.
Not perfect. Because believing that’s possible is a fool’s errand.
But rooted.
Aligned.
A vessel of the same love I’ve received.
Here’s the truth I’m holding onto: the Lord is shaping my parenting heart right now, and the shaping isn’t comfortable. But it’s purposeful. It’s forming something in me — and, I pray, something in them — that will become relational equity we can draw from for years.
If I wasn’t present, it wouldn’t feel this hard.
If I didn’t care, it wouldn’t feel like stretching.
The struggle itself is a sign of intentionality.
So here’s the question I’m sitting with this week — the same one I’ll offer to you:
Where in your life does the struggle simply mean you’re trying to live aligned with what matters most?
Sometimes the mess is the proof that your heart is exactly where it needs to be.
Big Ideas
Being Still: Being still with yourself is both harder and more rewarding than constantly distracting yourself. The greatest of outcomes can come from the hardest of actions.
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What I’m reading
Star Wars: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray (If you’re a Star Wars fan, send me your favorite novel!)
Becoming You: The Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career by Suzy Welch
What I’m listening to
Ryan Miller Interviews Dylan Mandell on the Jesus People Podcast (from earlier this year): From a Terminal Diagnosis to Unstoppable Faith
Wild At Heart Interview with Susie Larson: How Can You Survive Without… (part 3)
Quote for reflection
From Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation:
“The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently with themselves when they are alone.”
Stay Aligned,
Mark