Is your faith circumstancial ?

Sadly, I have to say mine has been at times. About a week ago, I got into a really ugly place and just couldn't get out. I saw nothing but darkness and no end to my heart ache. Since then, I have realized several things.
First, we won't see the light or the fact that there is an end to our trial if we don't try to. I figured out while I was gone that I am a glass half empty kinda person and it came into place so quickly I didn't even notice it since I have been home. I don't want to be that person! I don't want to be the person who is fake either though and says "with God my life is great". I want to be real, able to admit when I am struggling but at the same time able to see that this to shall pass.
Second, I have thought that my life has just stopped because one of the three most important things in my life is now gone. BUT I know realize I am just having to get my priorities in check. Get the things in line that I know are for sure constant and never stop loving. These are my children and Christ.
Thank God for my kids, they are the only ones who can make me laugh right now when I am just in the depths of a bad day. They love me and at this point in life, the aren't leaving or judging. My goal is to keep their little hearts full of love and joy seeing that life is possible to be abundant through Christ. What I can control is me, my actions and my behavior nothing else. I will allow them to see love through me and that even on the bad days, we can run to our heavenly Father and say I can't do this but I know you can. Why do we ever doubt or try to do better than what God can?
So at the end of this week of searching, I have found that my faith should not change when my circumstances do. EVERYONE WILL eventually leave my children included. EVERYONE WILL let me down and I WILL let at some point let everyone down as well. What I know is consistant, is Christ and His love for me. I will choose Him and to seek His face in all of this because I know and believe that what He has for me in the end is so much more than I could have ever created for me and the kids. I will be faithful to what He has called me to do even when I don't understand.


We are called to trust Him absolutely, resting in His sovereignty and faithfulness.

Failure

This past Wednesday, T.J. asked us a question. What does failure look like to us? I have thought alot about that since then. I feel like a failure every day right now, in so many ways. I am in my second failed marriage that at the end of the day ended the same way (how we got there different but the end still the same). This alone confirms to me my biggest fear that anyone is capable of anything and that in the end love is not enough. I right now have two kids crying for something I can't give them and may never be able to give them. Andrew not sleeping well unless he is in the bed with me and entering a new world all together, Alex angry and has her own feelings of failure that are so false. I can not find a job after weeks of looking. The urge in the pit of my stomache to just screw it and give up, take what the world has to offer and go with it. I can't get the last bit of weight off the right way and I know that in itself is a test that I may fail at. People commenting on things I say as if they know both sides of this story. Anger inside of me that just wants to errupt into someone I don't want to be. The feeling as though I want to run as fast as I can and for as long as I can and NEVER look back. I want to go inside my house with my kids and not be around anyone who can hurt me or them EVER AGAIN. Tell me this isn't failure!
I know none of this is very "christian" but this is truth, authenticity. This is how I feel, don't judge me people. Most of you have never been in this place I am in and have no clue what you would or wouldn't do or say. I am doing the best I can and today is just not a good day, I feel like a failure.

Letting Go

Accepting total responsibility for what is presently happening in your life and becoming 100 percent accountable for your future choices, actions and behaviors is huge in letting go. We can get a good start by pulling from the past with all its disappointments, regrets, and heartache, but then step out in faith and let go. I know this is the place I am at in my life. Letting go, to even hear those two words is painful. I know though that I am going to be no good to the cause and my purpose here if I don't. This situation is pulling me down and hindering me from moving forward in God's best for my life. I have lived my life for many years now "safe" not believing that God would cover my sin and allow me to heal from my past. Too scared to take a risk and thinking I had no choice in the matter "stuck". Isa. 43:18-19 says 18) “But forget ALL THAT, it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. 19) For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (NLT)
My heart aches for portions of what I am leaving behind. BUT portions are not enough. I don't want to settle and except just enough any longer. I know that in the future, God's plan for me is one that includes a fearless leader because Christ is his foundation. A man who joys over not only me but my children. I know that His plan more currently include a job with good income that I can provide for me and the kids and not need to rely on others at the same time being able to hold my head high knowing that I waited on His best. I know that God's plan includes ministry work for me whether it be a wife to a minister, a missionary to a foreign country or a platform being able to share my story to girls and ladies who have been in my same situations. I don't know exactly. I do know though that through my faithfulness and patience He will make my direction clear.
I once heard that you could fill your hand with sand and squeeze your hand as tight as possible so that you don't loose any sand but you could hold onto so much more sand if you would just us both hands and let the excess slip away. This is a good picture of where I am today. I have tried so hard for weeks now to hold on to that little bit of sand that I thought I couldn't live without. Instead of this very exhausting and dead end roller coaster ride, I want the abundant life that God has for me overflowing with joy and inner peace because I was able to let the rest go.
Please do not get me wrong, what I am letting go of is very dear to me and if there was any way I could hold onto it and still achieve all that God has for me I would. This is not currently possible though. I realize now that holding on to this will only bring me down because I need for all of my being to know that God is capable of amazing things if WE move out of the way and get over what WE cant overcome.
So in letting go I am loosing people I love and all that I hoped in at one time. What I am gaining though is a future that is bright and endless. My goals and my standards for myself are set high. I know without a doubt what I want in life and in my relationships and will not settle. I am gaining self confidence and hope. Hope for more. More out of myself and my relationships with others. Hope in Christ, that He alone will supply all of my needs. Love, Security, Identity, Companionship, Friendship, Fatherhood and Intimacy.
All along He wanted me to seek after Him, to trust that He alone would take care of me. When everyone else has failed me and turned their backs, HE still stood waiting for me to come to Him. What an amazing God we serve. He simply wants us to allow Him to love us, receive His love. Because I believe in ALL that He promises, I will be but a servant to His plans for me. GOD SEND ME, for I am letting go of all I had hoped for in this world. I am yours to the ends of the earth or here in our small town, just use me.
Eph. 3:20 says : Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
How awesome, His plans include somethings that are even more than what our minds can grasp at this current time if we can just take that leap and know that dying to ourselves and stepping out on faith will NEVER lead us down the wrong path. In fact, I believe that by choosing the harder less traveled road we will reach a level of peace and happiness would would never attain any other way. So, will you take that leap of faith or will you settle for what we as humans can handle.

Pain

Today I am at a pretty rough place and trying hard to push through and be real enough to own it and walk through it. I think this is the point that in my first divorce I made tons of bad choices that led me down a road that I can't afford to go down. I didn't feel all of this pain and heartache the first time because #1 I coped with alcohol and sex and just so many inappropriate ways to "deal" when truely I wasn't dealing at all. #2 I coped with a relationship occupying my time with someone else that took my mind off of the situation and allowed me to feel wanted and accepted. When the truth is it hurt me more because I wasn't dealing with what my heart was feeling and the pain it had to go through to heal. So I only endured more heart ache when that relationship obviously didn't work out.
So today I am stuck hurting beyond belief knowing that the only way to heal is to go through it each day at a time feeling all of it. It would of course be easy to say "he's doing it why can't I" truth is in the end I want to be different and so to be different I have to act different. Satan would love to use this opprotunity to overcome me and crush all that Christ has been doing in my life lately. I refuse to take the easy road though.
Yesterday, someone reffered to me as a flower that was blossoming (sp) and I take pride in that. Only because that means that people are being able to see Christ in me and at the end of the day I want to be as Christlike as possible. So that all of this pain and heartache of my trial is not in vain but that Christ may use me to reach others.
Am I saying I don't have fleshly moments, NO absolutely not. I want to scream and cry and say ugly things. I want to break things and run away at times. When I think that all the way through though I realize that my ruining my testamoney or going back to my old ways only harms me and those involved get exactly what they have been waiting for. THIS IS WHERE I KNOW I AM DIFFERENT! So yes, I will hurt for now but in the end I will have blossomed and God will use me.