Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Promises Fulfilled



Japanese symbol for circle

It was four years ago to this past weekend that the hubs and I made the choice to leave the home we had built over six years. It was a hard choice. Yet, both of us knew that it was the right one to make. So we started to pack up the extraneous, we began saying goodbye. 

All thru that process I was encouraged and reminded that nothing that I or my family had been given by God would be taken away. That Jesus wasn't in the business of giving and taking gifts away after they had been offered. Even if it seemed like it, nothing the Lord had grown me up into would be removed from my life. 
       I clung to those words and promises.
photo from The Bounce Blog
Like a life line. 

So we moved. Packed up our home, our stability and all the hopes and dreams that had started to percolate in Lafayette, IN. There was a sense of wonder and anticipation in my heart. We unloaded and packed. Got the kids in their new school. Then waited. And waited. And. Waited. 

I waited for all the promises and dreams to be fulfilled. Then, when the waiting got to a place of pain, I started hustling to make the dreams happen. If God wasn't going to fulfill the promises in the way I wanted them to happen. The way my limited, linear view could see clearly, then I was going to take matters into my own hand.

A funny thing happened on the way to making my dreams come true, none of them did. Instead I met closed doors and frustration. I was silently screaming for any and all to notice what good things I was bringing to the community we had moved to.What purpose God had for me to fulfill!  It was so frustrating and hard. I got to a low place of depression. I started questioning all the things I had believed so fully just a few months prior. 

My melancholy went from depression to suicidal. It took me to a place of hopelessness. Of feeling that nothing I did mattered. That my family and the world would be better off without me in it. 

I am so thankful that when I couldn't see the plan, God could. 

That Jesus ever so tenderly saw me in my closet and used words of life from my husband and my mom. Words of love and hope from my friends to help me see that I needed some help. The chemical imbalances of my brain had been brought to low points. I needed some pharmaceutical help to get to a healthier place. So I got it. And it helped.

But the dreams and hopes still weren't happening the way I wanted them to. In fact, life got a whole lot more messy and hard for a few more months.

Then, a door opened. It opened so wide and big it was like a barn letting out a big ol' tractor. 
https://perlmutterphotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/20111104-dsc_0210_1_2-edit.jpg
Our family ran thru that big ol' barn door. We ran hard and fast to a new job, a new location and a new school. We ran into a place of such hope and fulfillment that I'm still catching my breath. You see, God does bring fruition to the hopes and dreams of our hearts. He does indeed bring us to a place on the other side of the valley. We have to be willing to go thru the valley. It comes back to trust and humbleness. My lessons thru the valley brought me to that place. God used family and friends, His word and Sunday morning preaching to show me how to wait. How to be humble. 



Was it God's desire for me to be depressed and suicidal? To question His all encompassing love and grace for me? No, absolutely not. But even in that horrible, ugly state, God showed up and loved me. Not because of any grand thing I was doing. Or because I have any more worth or purpose than the next human. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit showed up because of love. Because that's what they do when their child calls out to them. For me, for you and for anyone else who calls the name of Abba Father.






No comments:

Post a Comment