“This is not the life I’d want!” It’s a declaration I hear often as a pastor.

It’s something I’ve said about my own life too. Living the life you don’t want to have is a scary place to be. It's difficult to even utter aloud. It’s dark. It’s lonely. And it’s the time that many of our friends want to bail (which makes it worse, of course!)

Sleepless nights are the norm. We change our behaviors in extreme shifts. We move slower or faster. We eat more or less than we should. And we often fall off the face of the “land of the living” for a while too.