Tag Archives: God

Teeny, Tiny, Faith

Posted in Life Ramblings by

God and I have been at a standoff for a while. I think He should take care of a thing or two. He thinks He is.

I learned a long time ago that being fake in my faith does no one any good. When I’m mad, God knows it. And I know He can handle it. But sometimes, it’s what He knows, that I don’t, that gets us in trouble.

Me: “I”m trusting you with this. Don’t let me down.”

God: “No, you’re really not.”

That just made me mad, because I really thought I was. So obviously things got more tense.

But then, a while back, I stumbled across a blog post by The Domestic Fringe. It started the ball rolling. Since then, God’s been teaching me a thing or two about the size of my faith.

Since we finished law school in May, things had been pretty bleak around here. It was a string of coming in second for perfect jobs, and a lot of thinking we’d finally found the plan, just to have the rug ripped out from under us again. The final blow had us looking at no where to live, and facing the real possibility of having to move into my high school bedroom in just weeks.

But, that it didn’t happen. We’re still in the apartment that has been our home for 3+ years. We’re making ends meet, just barely.

When I got a call from the last job that I thought was going to save the day, and they told me they had filled the position but would like to offer me a contract position — no duration guarantees, no benefits — I cried. I ranted to God. Why? They wanted me to do this job! Why one more piece of bad news? Why the same day I found out we NEEDED medical benefits?

In my mind, God providing for us means having enough to not worry. That’s what I’ve known. To me, that is the definition of enough.

What I’m beginning to realize is that I want just enough to not have to have faith.

This morning I read this: “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” – Matthew 17:20.  I’m pretty sure that my faith is so tiny it’s almost non-existent.

When we were going to lose our home, we didn’t.

When we didn’t have enough money to pay bills, it showed up.

When we desperately needed income, I got a job. My husband signed his first client.

But it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted just enough that I didn’t need to keep trusting God for everything. I wanted enough that I could just trust in us. He must have sent me 100 messages, but none of them stuck. Until this mornings. Something about it resonated.

It doesn’t matter how much I have on this earth. He could take it all back in a moment. I find my security in the exact opposite place than I should, even when I know better. I think I have a strong faith, but my heart often says different. It says it’s not even the size of a mustard seed.

Faith My Prayers Haven’t Gotten Lost on God’s Desk

Posted in Faith, Inspiration, Life Ramblings by

I have a job interview tomorrow, three months in the making.  And as I’m starting to pack up so we can head down to Madison, my home before law school, I’m feeling… lost.

When I found out that I got this interview, I was excited only because it was good news for a change.  It wasn’t a blindly written rejection letter without every meeting me.  But I didn’t think that I would ever actually be going on it.  There was a job for my husband in the works that we’d both become pretty sure was his.  We were looking for apartments and scouting things to do in THAT city.  It was a pretty big blow when we found out that after making it to the final two, his competition came in asking for WAY less than what the company was originally planning to offer.  They took the bargain, and we went back to waiting.

And I started doubting.  We have to be out of our apartment in less than two months.  We never imagined that five months after graduation wouldn’t be enough time to find something.  Anything.  We’re not even picky anymore.  But only two people out of the top five in our class have jobs.  Almost no one else has anything that will pay the bills.  It’s just how it is right now.  We know that.  But it doesn’t make the prospect of putting our things into storage and moving in with one of our families look, or feel, any better.  We’re too old, too married, and have too many graduate degrees between us for that to seem like anything but a huge step backwards.

As the doubt and fear has taken over, this little clock has been haunting me on Pinterest.  I’ve begun to feel like my prayers have gotten lost on God’s desk.  Doesn’t He realize there is a time crunch here?  Does He think this is funny?

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important that clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” – Matthew 6:25-27

So much easier said than done.

I don’t often struggle with faith in God.  I know He’s out there, and I believe He has plans for me.  Plans better than the plans I have for myself.  I’ve seen evidence of it, time and time again, throughout my life.  But when the calendar pages go flipping by, I don’t know how not to worry.  I try. I pray.  But I’m failing this time…

I song came on in my car this week while I was driving home from the store.  It’s about running into the guy you once thought was the one, after you’ve both moved on and gotten married.  The line that caught me was “I thank God I didn’t get what I thought that I deserved.”  I’ve been there.  I begged, pleaded, and bartered with God to save a failing relationship I had spent years believing was the right one.  And He didn’t.  And I thought the world was going to end.

And then I met my husband.

I know His plan is better than the plans I have for myself.  I know I see things in the here and now, and I can’t see what could be.  But today, what I know and what I feel don’t add up.  Today I’m scared.  Scared to hope again that this could be it.  Scared to be disappointed.  Scared to look like a failure.  Scared to feel like a failure.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6-7

So as we make the drive, I’ll be praying, petitioning and giving thanks… because I could use some of that transcending peace today.  And I know when I put it all in perspective, we’re still incredibly blessed for the things I take for granted.

But I’ll still take any extra prayers you want to throw my way.

Having Faith

Posted in Faith, Inspiration, Life Ramblings, Marriage, Relationships by

I had all of these great blog posts in progress for this week.  I was excited to be able to get back to a schedule, back to writing being a set part of my day, both for my blog and to start a new big project.  I thought this week would be about finding some normalcy in all of the change.  But instead, everything changed… again.

On Friday I turned 26.  And let me admit, I had a pretty bad attitude about it.  I won’t go on about birthdays in general (although that was going to be my blog post for Monday) because by the early hours of Sunday morning, lying in the ER, I was just praying I’d see another one.  It started with recurring symptoms that had been going on for a while… I assumed they were stress related.  It’s been a pretty ridiculously stressful time.  But then it was different.  Then I couldn’t breathe, and the pain wouldn’t go away.  I had all of the symptoms of a heart attack, and as I struggled to breathe, my husband rushed me to the ER.

If you’re predicting the outcome, trust me, I was too.  People don’t usually have heart attacks at 26.  And I was stressed. Panic attack, right?  I was sure of it.  I remember enough from my days as a psych undergrad to know that despite the fact I was lazily watching “Bunheads” at the time, panic can manifest itself in a lot of scary with no immediate trigger.  That’s what the nurses assumed as they took my vitals.  It’s what the doctor assumed as she ordered tests to be sure.

Then my EKG came back.  The doctor told me that there was an inconsistency between the two they had done, and started drawing pictures of heart monitor lines.  It seemed that blood wasn’t flowing right to my heart.  I needed to be admitted.  Then she started throwing around words like “bypass” and “surgery” and if I wasn’t already panicking, that’s where it started.

I’ll skip the long recitation… By the next afternoon I still hadn’t slept and I was a mess.  The final consensus is that I have a heart abnormality, but there are no signs of damage.  The abnormality is probably exacerbated by the stress, and because my body doesn’t know what’s wrong, it panics, and presents as a heart attack.  They aren’t sure of this.  I could pay thousands of dollars to find out more… but they don’t know that they’d actually find out more.  And at that point all I wanted was to be at home, in my own bed. So I came home, with answers… but not really.

My husband and I agreed that I would take a few days off of frantically job searching and worrying about our impending homelessness, and instead, would try to somehow forget about the status of life right now.  I would rest.  We wouldn’t talk about anything important.

But that only lasted a few hours.  Because then came the call that COULD change everything… a job.  The kind he’s always wanted.  In a place we never considered living in.  A city much smaller than we planned on, near my hometown.  Could he be there this week?

It could be exactly what we’ve waited for.  At moments it seems like an answer to our prayers, like we’ve finally been through enough and it’s time to move on and start real life.  At other moments, I remember the downsides to small town life, something my husband has never experienced before, and which would be rude awakening to him.  I think of all the plans we had to stay here or to move to the city I lived in before this.  I had apartments picked out in each one.  We knew everything about them… My control freak side starts to panic.

But I’m trying to give that up to someone who knows better than I do, and to trust that what’s meant to happen will happen.  So when I stumbled across the sketch above (lets ignore it being a tattoo…) it resonated with me deeply.  We have to have faith.  So we pack up, and we head off to find out what God has in store for us.  This could just be another dead end.  Or it could be a new beginning.  I’m not sure which I’m rooting for right now… But I’ll let you know what happens.