Have you ever been riding high on your faith so high that you believe nothing can bring you down? You feel that your faith is so strong that no matter what hits, you will be able to fight through it. Then, out of nowhere, something happens that takes you off your feet. Something that brings you so low that you feel like God is no longer protecting you.
     Well, that is what happened to me. I was so strong in my faith that I felt I could take on anything. I felt that nothing could hinder my walk with God. I was traveling to preach at different churches and would tell of what God gad brought my family and me through. I would share how we went through so many miscarriages, then God gave us a child, how God had blessed us through all of my oldest surgeries, and then gave us a second child.
     I would stand and tell how God has a plan in our lives. We just have to learn to hold on for the ride. I preached about having faith. I preached and believed that God had already sent me through the Storm, and I was finally sailing on calm waters.
     That was when we decided it was time for us to try for a third child. When we found out we were pregnant, I thanked God for another child and began planning for that baby to arrive. Then we discovered that the baby would not be born and we experienced another miscarriage, and at that moment, I took a hit that knocked me off of my high.
I hit the ground, and I didn’t know how to get back up. Before I knew it, I was traveling anymore. It got easier to stay at my home church. Then, it got easier to set down and not preach even there. Even after God blessed us with another son, I struggled. I felt defeated. I felt like I had failed.
     Then things got worse when my new baby was found to have a heart condition like his olfer brother and had to have heart surgery at five months old. I found myself asking God if I was being punished. I let that little voice in my head tell me it was my fault. That I had failed and God was now punishing my family and me.
     Then, a week before my baby was scheduled for surgery, my wife discovered we were expecting another child. I was breathless. We had decided that we didn’t want to try for more kids. We were scared of having the chance of having to put another child through heart surgery. After all, we were about to experience it with a second child.
      Then my pastor, who is also my father, said it best, “God gives us children because he trusts us and wants to bless us.”
      He then told me to read Psalms 127:4-5.
4 As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
     I asked him, then why was God giving me so many children that as a father, I had to watch them be in pain. Why me, why my children, and why my family had to endure so much hardship.
     His response was to read Romans 8:28.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
     I began praying for guidance again. I wanted to understand God’s plan again. I wanted to feel his love around me. I wanted to get back to where I was at, but I was still struggling with why God was letting my family go through so much hardship.
    That was until one day while a work a friend of mine, who I had prayed night and day for him to find his path with God. Well, he found his path right after I began to slip up and begin to feel defeated. One day, he called me and said something I needed to hear.
    He said that God knew that my sons would be born but he also knew he needed parents who could pray for the., raise the right, and be there through all of their surges and trust God to heal them. He knew my children needed me just as much as I needed them and that God had given them to me because he trusted me with them.
    At that moment, I realized I had let things that I had been through before hit my faith because I thought I would never have to experience them again. I felt sorry for myself when I should have trusted in God’s plan. When I played football in high school and someone got hit so hard they couldn’t get up, we would say they got rocked, and that is what happened to me, I got Rocked.
     Out of everything I am trying to say is, you will take hits in your faith. You will feel like you are being punished and that you are failing everyone around you. You will think that nothing is going right. You will start to feel sorry for yourself.
     You have to get back up. You have to remember that God didn’t leave you. He isn’t punishing you. You are just going through another trail. If you get hit and fall down. Get back up. Just don’t take as long as I have taken. Get up and get back to work for God.

Proverbs 24:16
16 For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.