I want to take a pause in sharing the current story to share a little of where the journey has me brought me to right now. The enemy has tried his best in this long wilderness season to get me to give up and to deny what I know, but I find myself strengthened beyond what I have words to express. Though nothing has changed in the natural (it has actually gotten worse each day), I have found peace in this storm. Not momentary peace, but peace that surpasses my own understanding. Peace that does not leave even when I have moments or even days where I am in tears and hurting from the natural circumstances.
As I shared in my last post, the questions and accusations against myself have been constant for 15 months. There have been weeks where I feel as if I was being tormented day and night. As if I was surrounded by laughing, taunting voices screaming at me for hours on end of my failure as a mother, failure as a wife, failure in ministry, failure in business, just failure in general. Clearly God is not with you. You think you hear Him speaking to you, but obviously you don’t. Why would He talk to you? You are nothing. You have missed it every single time. This is why you are where you are. Your own daughter is apologizing to people for who you raised her to be, why would anyone want to listen to you. Disappointment and Discouragement became my constant companions as days turned to weeks and weeks to months with no reprieve from the constant torment. Some days, I could barely find enough energy to whisper, “Jesus”, but it was enough. It is enough. There is so much power in that name.
Unshakable faith comes in knowing that He is right there when I can’t see Him and when I can’t hear Him. It is easy to say that we believe and we trust Him when it never gets put to the test, when it costs us little or nothing, but can we trust Him at all costs? Can we trust Him when our marriage is falling apart? Can we trust Him when the diagnosis for our child is cancer? Can we trust Him when He calls us to move away from all we love and start over? Can we trust Him with…? Fill in your blank, because each one of us is holding onto something so precious that we aren’t sure we can trust Him with it until we realize that we can.
When Jesus called His disciples, He called them to leave all they had and all they were currently doing to follow Him. This has not changed. We do not invite Him into the mess of our lives so He can clean them up. He invites us into a walk with Him that brings us into His Kingdom. Here and Now. Come and Follow Me. Oh, it will cost you. Family won’t understand you. Friends will betray you. The world will pull at you to compromise daily, but He overcame the world so that we can find peace in Him. As we allow the Holy Spirit who lives in us to lead us and teach us as we read the word, He gives us the wisdom, discernment and direction that we need to walk daily in peace, no matter the circumstance.
John 16:33
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
My favorite scripture is James 1:2-8 and I believe that I have been given a gift in this wilderness season to understand this scripture a little more than I did before. Each time, my perseverance is tested to higher a degree, my faith increases and I reach a new level of maturity in Christ. A new level of understanding what it takes to cast all aside to follow Him.
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
I can look back over my life and see each and every time when God has used these trials in my life to strengthen my perseverance and my courage to face the next trial when it comes. These trials have taught me to stand in this unshakable peace as the storm rages around me and I wouldn’t give up the lessons that I have learned along the way for anything…the gift I have gained is priceless. I have found peace in the storm, a trust in Him that cannot be explained and a new level of hope and expectation for tomorrow as I keep my eyes fixed on Him…even if it is through my tears some days.
