Finding My Voice

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I Dreamed a Dream

O c'mon, I can't be the only one who sings that song when I see anything about dreaming dreams, right?  Anyone else with me?  Alright then, moving on...

I have to say that this time apart from my husband, while extremely hard, has been a wonderfully eye opening experience and I believe with all my heart that God has planned this time of physical separation for a reason. Let me explain...  

I got married at the ripe, young age of twenty-one and went from my parent's house, to a home with my new husband. I never had a chance to be on my own (enter another Le Mis song...) and never really had a chance to figure out who I was, what made me...me and I've been struggling with an identity crisis, so to speak.  Now, don't get me wrong. I know with all my heart that my ultimate identity is in Christ.  I am the daughter of the King of Kings and I have been redeemed, made holy and I am a saint. But there is more.  What are my passions? What are my dreams? What makes me tick? What do I want to be when I grow up?  These are the questions that have turned my life upside down for the past couple of weeks. I'm thirty-two years old and I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up until just about a week ago. I honestly never thought much about it and if I did think about it, I made my passion whatever I felt other people wanted my passion to be. 

In high school, I thought I wanted to be a teacher, because that's what everyone around me was  doing.  My two sisters-in-law were teachers, I was raised around teachers and my friends in school wanted to be teachers and I wanted summers off, so I just assumed that teaching  would be the thing for me! Well, after volunteering in children's church (and HATING it!) and failing miserably at our local junior college, mostly because of a lack of motivation, I decided that teaching wasn't for me. In reality, I was just doing what everyone else was doing.  Not a great idea.  

Now here I am, twelve years later and I think I'm finally able to see the path God has prepared for me. If I wasn't able to be on my own, away from other influences (except for some wise, Godly counsel from my mentors and other Godly advisers) and at a point where it was necessary to rely on God alone, I don't think I would have been a position to hear the Spirit reveal to me what God's plan includes.  This really made Psalm 37:4 real to me.

Once I focused my mind, my heart and my soul on the Lord and what he wants for me. I got it.  I got my passion.  He gave me my dream, and I'm going to use this time of waiting to start following this God-given dream.  I've started prayerfully making goals for the first time in my life and step by messy step, I'm following the path I believe God has prepared for me.  

Yep, at thirty-two years old, I've finally got a dream and I'm following it.  I'm excited and terrified all at the same time because these steps include things I swore I'd never do and things I believed I never could do and I believe that if God has called me to this, He will prepare me for everything, so I will just trust Him as I walk this crazy, messy path. 

To any who may be reading this and are struggling with their own identity crisis, know this first...  If you are in Christ, that is your main identity. Get to know Jesus. Seek Jesus. The more you seek the heart of God, the more God will reveal His heart to you and with that will flow the dreams and desires God has prepared specifically for you. He's promised it.

So, what is this big plan of mine? Well, that's a different blog post for a different day.

It's Been a Year...

No Seriously...

It's been over a year since I last posted on this blog o' mine and boy, have things ever changed... Again!!!

Let's see, in the past year I got a job, moved in with my best friend and said "see ya later" to my husband, who is off creating a new life for us in another city, in another state.  This past year has had so many ups and downs I feel like I've been living at Six Flags. While things are calmed down for now, I'm about to be strapped in for another crazy ride. 

This is why I decided to come back to blogging.  God is moving.  He's moving big time in my life and I need a place to share with others what exactly He's doing. When God moves in my life, things get messy.  He calls me to do hard things.  Things I've never considered and things I swore I'd never do, so I need a place to come back to.  To see where God is working because when the hard times come (and they will come. I know this already!) I need to go back to a place where I saw God's providential hand guiding me along this messy path..

I know I could just keep journals, and I do;  however I also need other people to see what God is doing in the lives of both my husband and me.  Many people are confused as to why we have made the decisions we have and while there are many, many good intentions out there and because people love me, there is a lot of questioning of our life choices right now.  I need them to know that while while I completely understand their confusion and their questioning (believe me, I question things a lot of the time too) my husband and I are doing what we believe with all our hearts God is calling us to do, and I want this blog to be a testimony of God's faithfulness to us as we walk in obedience.

Lastly, I'm also hoping that this blog might encourage other women who who may be in the same shoes I am.  Women who are physically separated from their husbands for a season. Women who struggle with God's call in their lives and are afraid to move forward, or perhaps, I can let other women see that you can keep a sense of humor while your world is turning upside-down. 

All I do know for now is that God is telling me to write my story. And so I am.

Five Minute Friday: Grit

I just stumbled upon this blog where every week, she hosts a "five minute Friday" blog event where she picks a topic and we are to write about it in five minutes, without editing. I think that's a great idea and since this blog is about a messy life, what's more messy than letting me just go on a verbal rabbit trail without over-thinking about it and editing!  I think it's a great idea for wanna be writers like me, to just let it all out. In her words, she says,

"We write because we love words and the relief it is to just write them without worrying if they’re just right or not. So we take five minutes on Friday and write like we used to run when we were kids."

I totally love this idea except for the running part. I never ran as a kid, but I digress...

This week's topic topic to write about is "grit". First of all, I actually looked up the word grit to see how I could incorporate the word into the messy journey I'm on and all I can think about is the grit grades (I think that's what they are called) on sandpaper. And what is sandpaper used for? It's a refining tool that woodworkers use.  

I think refining is the word that the Holy Spirit is putting on my heart lately, because that's what He's doing right now. Everything I'm going through, from the confusion and frustration of things not going how I want it to go is all part of His plan to get me focused on Him and keep my eyes off my circumstances to make me more like Him.

Refining is an ongoing process that will continue on until the day we go to be with the Lord. How will we respond to the refining process? Will we pout and kick and scream because it hurts, or will be turn our eyes off of ourselves and on to Jesus which is the whole point of being refined?

Aaaannnnd my five minutes is up. That was harder than I thought it would be, but it was still a nice exercise in writing!

It's Not About Me

Again, I have so much jumbling around in my heart and head, it's taking me forever to figure out how to put it into a cohesive thought, so bear with me!

Yesterday, while listening to my BSF leader teach on suffering and comfort, she mentioned a quote by Oswald Chambers that has stuck with me since she said it and I cannot stop thinking about it.  I think it has seriously changed my perspective and it couldn't have come at a better time. Chambers says;

"If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands." 

I think as someone who tends to the selfish side of things, when I'm facing a rough time on this journey I'm on and things don't go as I have planned them, I so easily fall into the trap of "why me?" and "what have I done to deserve this?"  All that does is put me into the center of my circumstances and once my focus is off of Jesus, fear, anger, and confusion sets in and turns into that downward spiral of self pity and doubt.  Instead of trying to see things in God's perspective, I'm blowing up balloons, putting streamers up, and getting my party hat ready for the biggest pity party of my life.  

So if there's one thing I've learned, it's the pain, anger, and confusion that trials bring is that it's not about me. It's just not. When you look at it with God's perspective, It's about Jesus and the sanctification process and the amazing part is that, as Hebrews says, it's for the purpose of sharing in His holiness! Check it out:

...but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, (aint THAT the truth!) but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:10b-11.

We are able to share in  God's holiness when we go through the discipline of enduring hardships.  And yes, being pruned and refined through a trial is often times, very painful because Jesus is removing junk from our lives in order to put in its place, a "peaceful fruit of righteousness".  Not only does suffering produce righteousness, it is also to produce steadfastness, as James 1:2-4 says;

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (love that word!). And let steadfastness have it's full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." 

To top it all off, we are not to wallow in self pity when we face trials, but we are to, as James says, "count it all joy". He wasn't the only one to say that either. When Paul wrote to Peter he said;

"But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:13

I guess what I'm trying to say in this long rambly post of mine, is that instead of focusing on the bad of my circumstances, I need to look to Jesus, who already endured suffering on the cross for me, so I can rejoice in my salvation and use this time to see how I am becoming more like Jesus, which is the ultimate goal!

Life is a Messy Journey

I have to say that I've been sitting here for over an hour, trying to figure out how to start this millionth attempt at consistent blogging. I don't know why I want to blog, I just know that I do so I'm trying to figure out my shtick.  I'm a terrible homemaker, so I can't go that route again. I'm not really that crafty and the craft supplies I own are in storage right now, so I also can't go that route.  All I have is Jesus and a heart full of stuff that just wants to get out, so I think I'm going to re-start my blogging journey going down that route. 

I chose the title "A Messy Walk", because I feel as a Christian, that's how life is.  Following Jesus isn't always rainbows and puppy dogs and unicorns. Following Jesus is messy. Being obedient to His calling in my life is messy. Trying to figure out the journey He has me on is REALLY messy, because of my failures along the way. Failures are messy.  Life is just messy! It's a good messy because it's through the mess that God reveals Himself in HUGE ways, but it's messy nonetheless and sometimes even painful. 

So that's what this blog is all about.  It will be just me sharing my heart and how Jesus is revealing Himself to me as I go on the path He has set before me. I'm not even keeping this blog to a specific theme because I will hopefully write about anything and everything.

So there ya have it. I'll just leave you with this because it really touched me when I saw it (God bless Pinterest!)