When God does give you more than you can handle...

We've all been through hard times, some of us harder than others, but everyone experiences hardships from time to time.  Something I've been learning (and am continuing to learn) over the past few years and especially the past few weeks is how to have total and complete trust in God.  Not just trusting in the small things, or with the easy things, but with the big, hard, personal things you want more than anything to hold on to!  It's not easy, and I certainly haven't perfected it but I am trying everyday to do better.  I mentioned in my last post that I have been having some health problems.  While I am feeling better than I was I am still not back to "normal" or back to full strength or stamina.  Unfortunately I found out this week that all of this is going to great impact my job more than I ever would have imagined.  The doctors and my employer have decided that it would be best if I am "reassigned" to a different area at least until this passes or they figure out exactly what is going on.  I couldn't believe it when I found out!  So now, not only is all this preventing me from going back to Uganda, but it is also keeping me from my job!  All I know is working with babies in the NICU!!  It is all I've done in my 10+ years as a nurse!  Questions upon questions start reeling in my head...Why is this happening? How am I going to do this? How will I adjust to a day shift schedule if they move me? I've worked nights most of my career! How will I afford the lack of the night shift differential if I get moved to days? What if I hate it? And on and on...  I was beginning to think this was all going to be too much to handle!  I wanted to stay positive but it was becoming more and more difficult!  But then, I remembered these words...

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

We've all probably heard the phrase "God won't give you more than you can handle".  While that is a great comfort to many, biblically its not totally accurate.  I stumbled upon a great article about this exact topic the day I found out about my job.  Definitely a God thing!  Anyway, the article was a great reminder that sometimes God allows hardships and trials in our lives to remind us of our complete and utter dependence on Him and Him alone!!  He DOES give us more than we can handle so that we can rely on Him to get through it and give Him the glory for it!!  It is just another way He draws us closer to Himself so that He can show us His love and Grace in our lives!!  So, in reality, we should really be honored and grateful for the hardships in our lives because it allows us to rely more on the One who carries us through!  Then we can boast about His greatness when we come through the other side!!  So as hard as these past few weeks have been, and as hard as the next few weeks may be, I know that in my weakness His strength is perfect and that His plans are perfect!! None of this is a surprise to Him!!  He has it all under control!  So, I will trust that He has a plan and will reveal it all in His timing, and when I come through all of this stronger and with more faith I will boast about my Great God and how He carried me through this difficult time!!  It may not always be easy, and I may feel really unsure of things at times, but I know God can and will get me through this if I just lay it all at His feet and humbly say "I cannot handle this without YOU!". 

When following really means staying...

When you think of the word follow what do you think of?  Typically it means that you are going somewhere, or being guided somewhere.  Here is an actual definition of the word follow: "To go in the direction of; be guided by".  "To go".  That is always how I interpreted that word until the last few days...

 

Anyone who knows me, knows my heart for Uganda and how I consider it my second home, my love for the people and children there, and my desire to go back ASAP!  Over the past few months since returning from my second trip there in October, I have been praying a lot and searching for the next opportunity for me to go back.  A couple months ago an opportunity was presented to me to go work with the ministry Healing Faith, which I had the honor and privilege of working with for a day on my last trip.  (That one day was more than enough for me to fall in love with that ministry and what they do!  Learn more here).  This opportunity would be in the form of a 2-3 month internship starting in June and was exactly the kind of opportunity I had been praying about that would allow me to go serve in Uganda for longer than just a couple weeks.  I was so excited!  I began to think about how I could take time away from my job for that long and how I would raise the money to do it.  I knew it would require a lot of sacrifice, and possibly even mean quitting my job, but I was willing to do whatever it took to follow God's leading and take advantage of this amazing opportunity!  I know a lot of people may be stuck here thinking "What?  You would quit your job to go to Africa for a couple months on an unpaid internship?!?"  Yes...yes I would.  You see, over the past few months God has reminded me through His word, devotions, and sermons at church that sometimes following His will requires you sacrificing huge things in order to walk in His will, and follow His calling on your life.  I really thought and felt like perhaps that was exactly was God was asking of me!  A couple weeks ago I received the email confirming I had been accepted for the internship and I was ecstatic!  Unfortunately my excitement was short lived because reality set in...I have been in the middle of dealing with health problems, medical bills are beginning to pile up, and at times I have barely had the energy for a trip to the grocery store, let alone a two or three month stay in Africa!  How could I even think about quitting my job when I have all these medical bills, and would need to raise thousands of dollars to even think about going to Uganda?  I was crushed!  My heart broke into a million pieces even thinking about not being able to go and serve with this amazing opportunity and ministry!!  Even more heartbreaking was the thought that turning the internship down would mean I would have no idea how or when I will be able to return to Uganda!  I began to pray and really search the Word for answers and what I should do.  I just kept thinking that sometimes God asks us to take a leap of faith and then He can make huge things happen!  Couldn't this be one of those situations?  Even when I wanted to have pure faith that He could make all of this come together, He could restore my health for me to be able to go, He could provide the funds, and a way for me to leave my job, I still didn't have a sense of peace about it.  The more I prayed, and sought His will, the more I felt at peace about NOT going!  But how could that be?  Would He really want me to take the path that to me initially seemed to be less of a "leap"?  The more I wrestled with it the more confused I became.  (That wonderful human nature coming through.)  Then a couple days ago I heard the song "I Will Follow" by Chris Tomlin on the radio.  I've heard that song many, many times and always just heard the "I will follow" part, but that day I heard something totally different.  Here are the lyrics to the first part of the chorus.

 

Where you go, I'll go
Where you stay, I'll stay
When you move, I'll move
I will follow you
 

Do you see that..."Where you STAY, I'll STAY!"  All this time I had been thinking that to Follow God meant I had to GO somewhere, or do something major to follow Him, but in that moment I realized that sometimes following after God means staying right where you are!  For me, right now, having the faith to STAY and trust he has me here for a reason, is a bigger leap than going back to Uganda in June for the internship.  I realized that trusting God with the uncertainty of when I will be able to return to Uganda is a huge step of faith for me and will require a lot of trust that His plans are much better than my own!  I think God has really used these last couple months to really teach me about trust and real reliance on Him.  Through faith He brought me to a place I was willing to sacrifice my job and daily life to do His will!  In the end (at least for now) I don't actually have to give up my job, but just knowing I was willing to do that is a testament to how much God has helped me grow in the last few months.  I saw a quote the other day that I loved and fits perfectly into this situation.  "Don't waste the season of life you are in now because you want the next one to come. God has a purpose for each season you are in. Trust him, and purpose to embrace this season well."  All this time I've been looking forward, thinking only about how I can get back to Uganda, when I should be embracing where God has me right now!  I know God will lead me back to Uganda in His perfect timing, but right now I will trust He has me right where He wants me, right here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I will do my best to follow Him by staying right where I'm at!

Faithful...

As Christians sometimes I think it can be easy to say things because they seem like the right thing to say or because it is what we should say, but deep down do we really mean it?  Something I know I've said at times with sort of a grain of salt is "I know God is faithful" but as hard as it is to admit there were times I really wondered and had doubts that He truly would be in that situation.  As my relationship with the Lord has grown, my trust in His faithfulness has grown also, but at times I still have doubts. I think that is one way, at least in my own life, the enemy really sneaks in does his damage. He plants that seed of doubt and then our own human nature and insecurities take over and that doubt just continues to grow.  These past few weeks have been rather trying for me on a personal level. I haven't suffered anything traumatic or completely life altering, but I have been having some issues with my health.  I won't go into details but my symptoms have been somewhat vague, yet bad enough that I have now missed two and a half weeks of work.  The doctors I have been seeing are sort of at a loss as to what is going on.  I have had numerous blood tests, scans, and x-rays over the past couple weeks with everything coming back "unremarkable".  To say that I have been frustrated would be an understatement!  I have spent the majority of the past couple weeks on my couch, which may sound nice, but it gets old real quick.  I just want to feel "normal" again.  I have prayed over and over with every doctor appointment or test that God would provide some answers, but none have come.  I was beginning to feel completely at a loss and that God was feeling more and more absent in my situation.  I just didn't understand why I am dealing with this and even more why I haven't been getting any answers. I was really beginning to question God's faithfulness in this situation.  But then, as God so often does in His perfect Divine timing, He reminded me of his faithfulness through a song that I had never heard before called "Faithful" by the band Hawk Nelson (If you haven't heard it go listen to it!).  It seemed as though that song was being played just for me!  Here are the lyrics of the first verse and chorus:

 

You never promised me that this would be easy
I never knew that anything could be this hard
I wanna trust that You know what You're doin'
But right now, I'm just fallin' apart
It's hard to see it when I'm livin' in the moment
But Your love's still written on my heart
I get lost when I feel the wind blowin'
I gotta cling to who You are

'Cause You are good
Even when You're not understood

No matter how many skies fall down
I'm covered under the peace I've found
You're my shelter when there's nowhere else to go
No matter how many times I break
You promise always to keep me safe
You're my rescue when I'm spinning outta control
You are faithful, faithful
You are faithful, faithful

 

The lines that reminded me that God IS ALWAYS GOOD even when we don't understand went straight to my core!!  He IS FAITHFUL!!  It may not always happen when or how we would like, but God always has us in the palm of His hands and will bring us through our most trying times if we will just trust in Him!  I still don't know when I will get any answers about my health or when I will feel "normal" and be able to go back to normal activities again, but I do know and really genuinely believe now that God has a purpose for even this and that He will be faithful to bring me through it!!  Maybe the purpose is simply to teach me to trust Him more, or believe in His faithfulness more, or maybe there is an even bigger purpose.  Only He knows, but regardless, I know that He is teaching me and I am grateful for even this trying time in my life that is allowing me to grow closer to my Heavenly Father! 

One day in Your courts!

We sang a song at church this past Sunday at the new church I think I am going to start attending that I hadn't heard in quite awhile, but it really struck a cord with me. I have been searching for a new church home off and on for that past 6 months since I moved back home to Fort Wayne. After attending such an amazing church down in Indy, I guess I had a high standard and just wouldn't settle until I felt like God had really led me to the right place. My new job made it even more difficult because I have been working a lot more weekends and haven't been able to go on a lot of Sundays. The song we sang this past Sunday that really hit home was Better Is One Day. It's a pretty popular worship song sung by the likes of Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and Kuttless, but just in case you haven't heard it here are the lyrics to the first verse and chorus

How lovely is

Your dwelling place

Oh Lord Almighty,

For my soul longs

And even faints

For You

Oh, here my heart

Is satisfied (is satisfied)

Within Your presence

I see beneath

The shadow of

Your wings

Better is one day in Your courts

Better is one day in Your house

Better is one day in Your courts

Than thousands elsewhere

After a time of being in church so intermittently, being back in church this past Sunday reminded me how important and refreshing being in His Dwelling Place really is!  It is true.  My soul really was longing and even fainting for His presence. I was spiritually thirsty and hungering for that feeling of worshiping with fellow believers and lifting voices to our God.  But, even as amazing as being back in church and "His Courts" was I realized while we were singing that song that being in God's Dwelling Place doesn't mean you have to be in a church building!  I have experienced some of the most amazing worship experiences outside of a church building...in my car, my home, and even in the bush in Africa!  In fact, the most raw and authentic worship experiences I've had were in church services in Uganda!!  Those Ugandans know how to worship!!  They could teach us all a thing or two or ten about how to truly commune with God!!  In this new year I am going to focus a lot more on really finding time to spend with God in His Dwelling Place on a daily basis!  It is there that He teaches me, and molds me, and leads me to places I can never imagine!!  He has big things in store for my life this year and I can't wait to discover more and more what those are!  I'm done trying to fit God into my life and my schedule!!  One day in His Courts is far better than a thousand in mine!!  

Another year older...another year ending...a new year dawning.

It's New Years Eve, and yesterday was my birthday.  As I have been reflecting on the past year I am once again amazed at what God has brought me through and allowed me to experience in my life!  There have been times of great joy, and times of disappointment and sorrow.  Many things did not go how I expected or planned, but God has been faithful through it all!  I became an Aunt to the most amazing baby boy  and little heart warrior ever!  I was able to return to Uganda for a second time and fell even more in love  with that country than I already was!  My hopes of adopting have been put on hold, but I am at peace with it now.  So many things He has had his hand on in my life throughout this past year.  Is my life where I thought it would be as I turned 33 yesterday?  No, not exactly, but in many ways its been better than I could have imagined.  True there have still been disappointments, but I'm learning more and more that God's plan is Always better than my own, so it's much easier to just let Him have control in the first place!  So, as 2014 approaches, that is my plan...to let Him be in full control!  I am human so I am sure there will still be times I will try to hold on for dear life to "my plans", but I pray as I enter this new year I will be more open than ever before to where he leads and wants to do in my life!  I am so excited to see where God leads me in 2014, and am ready and willing to go and do whatever he has in store!  So, farewell 2013, you've been great...hello 2014 lets see what you've got in store!!