"Together we will forge a pathway up the high mountain. The journey is arduous at times, and you are weak. Someday you will dance light-footed on the high peaks; but for now, your walk is often plodding and heavy. All I require of you is to take the next step, clinging to My hand for strength and direction." - Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
It's been a long times since I've posted. And that in itself has led me to not posting. I mean I get to thinking, "It's been this long... why should I do it now?" or "Man, now its been X amount of time in my second attempt at a blog - maybe this is telling me something!" But in all these doubts over these past 10 months I've had the whispering of my heart to continue.
Have you ever had that whispering? I mean it started out vaguely over the last couple of months in response to some HUGE life changes and decisions I've made and the 2-3 blog attempts to describe what has been happening. In the end I let my perfectionist view of what I had to say get to me or my doubts that it really mattered at all. I always had an excuse. And then there is the biggest thing: the fact that sharing about my faith story and how God has moved in my life in the last year is scary. That maybe it won't appeal to some of my friends on Facebook. That maybe I will sound crazy.
And I let it all get to me. And like my other attempts I simply let it go... (and no singing of any Disney songs now please). And I thought it was OK.
I once had a dream to write a book about my life. I had an inherent need to shout my story from the rooftop - but for all the wrong reasons. Its funny, the more I came to God, the more I healed from the past, the more I found myself, I then began to slowly let go of that dream. I didn't feel the need to share it for my sake anymore. I did, however, eventually start this blog as a means of sharing my revelations and feeling free to talk about the healing power of God, along with talking about just the general stuff that happens in life from my distinctive viewpoint and voice. In the end I knew that would entail sharing my story, the one I wanted to write all those years ago, bit by bit. And that felt ok - in fact I felt powerfully pulled to do so by God. That sounds very distinctly scary to say.
But that is what risk is right? It's scary. I bring up risk because of my pastor's sermon just yesterday. Firstly, I know because I'm jumping into month 10 of my life it's as if I'm just making an assumption everyone knows that I've found a church (www.eaglecreekchurch.com) and how important that church has become to making my life here as whole as it is. And see that little tidbit there is my example of how I'd get bogged down in all the details. How am I supposed to tell someone the important stuff if I don't start at the beginning or even just hit the highlights? This is partly my personality (ask my friend A - He totally just asked me this past Saturday night about one specific thing and I told him the whole story of my day from the time I woke up) and partly I think its a way for negativity (the devil) to push at me to just give up right here and now. So I'm going to skip the fact that I may think you need to know more about everything and just start with this sermon.
My church for the past 7 weeks has been doing a summer sermon series called At the Movies. And I know that I could probably go back and look at my notes and find little tidbits about following God's whispers because I know I've been feeling his nudges for awhile now. But yesterday's was a bit more forceful than a nudge. The sermon: "The Bucket List". It's crazy to me is because I once wrote a Bucket List years ago and my number one to do was to jump out of a plane. Pastor Matt used that as a first example! When he asked who had that on their list I enthusiastically raised my hand and it seemed as if he looked right at me. What is more extraordinary is another one of my top things was writing that book - which I eventually decided my blog could replace that. So it was kind of like a wake up call - like God was saying pay attention.
He then went into the 3 things that we should have on our Bucket List and that if you did these things by the end of your life you will have lived a fulfilled life. The very first thing: "Keep taking God directed Risk." The other 2 were important too and if you were curious you can go to my church's website and watch it (it's already posted I checked), but I want to just stick with this first principle and how it rattled in my brain for the rest of the day. Matt said, "God challenges us to step out... to live a life of faith." He reviewed Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Have I been living in faith. Have I been taking risk. No. No I haven't. Not the biggest one. The one placed on my heart. The one to write about my faith here. These statements reminded me of a bracelet given to me (and the whole group) by a group member of one of two bible study's I've been attending this month. I've been wearing everyday to work since she gave it to us. It says My Life = My Worship. I know I'm going to butcher the story behind it so I will just say what I took from it. We should remember that everything we do in our life should be to the glory of God, whether at home, in church, with friends, at work or really anywhere. I wear it to remember to choose to be a representation of that every day. And while I did that simple thing - wearing a bracelet to change the way I am everyday in the real world - there is one place I'm not showing my faith by my truest God given gift - my writing here and in the online world. I was letting my doubt, need for perfection, and my plain fear of the unknown cloud my calling.
But did I go home and write a blog post? No. I went and did laundry - lazily watched television. Didn't even read my two Bible study books like I had promised myself I would do. I let distraction rule. And as a result I was almost late to my Bible Study. And you know what - I was given another push. The book my Sunday night group is reading is called Forgotten God by Francis Chan and the section we were reading was about our reputation and where we letting that it get in our way. If you do listen to the sermon I mentioned you'll see that this went along perfectly with the 2nd principle to live in your life. There was a section about how we as American's tend to worry, to often an unhealthy degree, what people think of us. Chan goes on the say, "When we become overly concerned about our appearance, our spiritual reputation, our coolness, and our acceptance, we are living as citizens of this world rather than as ambassadors." I ended up sharing with my group about this blog and how I related that passage to my own personal fears. They of course challenged me to ignore my fears and worries of such a large gap since my last post. And I went home and could not for the life of me log on to my blog account. And I took that frustration as a sign to just go to bed.
And then there is today. My 33rd birthday. It's funny I've been telling everyone I'm 33 for several months now. It started out as saying I'm almost 33 and somewhere along the line I just dropped the almost. I don't know if it was that or for the first time in my life I didn't have any plans (even for the weekends before or after). I mean my mom's in Arizona (so far away!) and my brother is in Iowa (so busy!) and my friends here... well we made a comment about a month ago about doing something - but with the holiday, jobs and life... well it just slipped by. It's also the first birthday in 10 years that I didn't take off from work (as I have a new job I couldn't justify taking a Monday - the hardest day of the week - off). So I woke up today very anti-climatically.
In fact, I woke up sort of in a haze. Not really in a funky sad mood - just hazy. It was the first day of having a new boss, some reorganization at the job as the result of losing 4 supervisor/managers to federal positions. It felt disorganized, I had some difficult claims to read, and it went downhill from there. By mid-day I was struggling to not think why me and to not fall into the negativity that was falling on my shoulders. I kept chanting my new motto: Choose happiness (which is a whole other post I hope to eventually write :) ). At the end of the work day I went to run an errand that proved to just be an errand in frustration as it turned a simple activity of one hour into three hours as I made a huge error in my mapquest calculations. And again I was almost late to getting to my Monday night Bible study!
And tonight - I ended up sharing a big part of my story with these women. Our Bible study we are doing is called Sacred Secrets by Beth Moore and its had a profound effect on me and I really hope to maybe go into some of that in another blog post. But two things stood out to me in tonight's video message from Beth Moore. The first was a diving into the context of Mark 4:22 "For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light." Sounds like an ominous verse but add the previous verse Mark 4:21 "Then Jesus asked them, "Would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed? Of course not! A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light will shine." Basically it is saying that what God has done for us in secret we should share it with the world. And that basically has described my life over the last 4 years. I have been working in private with God, carving out the bad and letting my scars heal. I've learned to even love my scars. It was ugly at times but it was also quite beautiful in others. And I haven't shared it with very many people. In fact, up until recently, I've only really shared huge chunks of it with those who lived it with me - those that walked the same road to recovery with me. And they actually know the story - saw the transformation, and so its not scary to share it with them. But everyone else, putting out there for possible old friends, friends of friends, acquaintances or even strangers to read. That is scary.
The second thing was just an extension of the hidden the private, where Beth Moore ended up discussing David and Goliath and how he mentioned how he fought a lion and a bear so they should send him in to fight Goliath. She discussed how the people of that time may not have even understood what he meant or believed him because no one had seen him do these things. She found that so profound she end up on her knees almost shouting "I have fought a Lion and a Bear. You have no idea what I've fought in private." I could relate and I even felt myself saying loudly in my head the exact same words, "I have fought a Lion and a Bear." And I should not hide that under a basket or under a bed.
And if leaving that Bible study wasn't inspiring enough God had three messages in a row for me on the radio... two full songs broken up by a message:
1) Francesca Batistelli's "He Knows my Name" - specifically the following lines:
"Spent today in a conversation, in the mirror face to face with somebody less than perfect
I wouldn't choose me first if I was looking for a champion
In fact I'd understand if you picked everyone before me but that's just not my story
True to who You are, you saw my heart and made something out of nothing....
I'm not meant to just stay quiet, I'm meant to be a lion (A LION you guys!)
I'll roar beyond a song with every moment that I've got
True to who You are, You saw my heart and made something out of nothing"
2) The devotional for today from Jesus Calling Facebook page was shared. I thought it the perfect intro for my post.
3) Mikeschair's "Thank You" - specifically these lines:
"It would have been easy but I'm glad You never walked away
Cause Your love runs deep for me and I see this beautiful world
And it brings tears to my eyes and I think it's beautiful to be free...
Wanna thank You for the grace, I know I don't have to earn
You love me, You love me
Your mercy is proof
All I can do is say thank You"
And it was like God talked to me all the way home back to my little apartment. It was all the pushes I need to sit down and write this all out.
It's just past midnight and I've been writing for several hours - but it feels like only moments I've felt so moved. I'm going to go ahead and post this mistakes and all. Because if I let myself I'll keep it to review tomorrow just to make sure there aren't mistakes made in a rush. But will it have the same earnest edge I feel in it now. I'm not so sure. And besides I've more often than not written whole posts and just never posted them because I felt different later. I think that's all negativity that I don't need to pay attention to. So please enjoy, ignore the grammar mistakes, and feel free to share with whomever you want.
Thank you for reading. But in the end, "all I can say is thank You" to God for giving me the encouragement I needed to sit down and post.
