Believe
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my beautiful friend invited us to her familiy’s farm
I have had to do all sorts of learning, relearning, and unlearning during my life journey. My goal has been to get to some level of proficiency, ease, and mastery with whatever I am doing.
I am now raising four children while working full time in Emergency Medicine during a pandemic while navigating the intricacies of establishing custody. I am one of six children. What started as a family unifying in the setting of my mother’s rapid decline and subsequent death has ended in recurring Zoom meetings without participants.
Even so, I am not alone in this.
“Yahweh is my best friend and my shepherd. I always have more than enough. He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near the quiet brook of bliss. That’s where he restores and revives my life. He opens before me the right path and leads me along in his footsteps of his righteousness so that I can bring honor to his name. Even when your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for you already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for you are near.”
Words and Reading
I love words. I love reading. My mom taught me to read early. I entered Kindergarten at four, already reading. My earliest and fondest memories were looking for books at the Vestal Public Library and finding a nook to sit and read. When I started preparing for the birth of my first daughter, I sought out favorite books that I was eager to read to her. I am grateful to God to be able to impart my love for reading to these four children.
I am reading the Circle Maker by Pastor Mark Batterson for the second time. This time I am reading it with my children. We are reading books out loud to each other, and we share an experience together. It is beautiful that such a simple exercise can cultivate community, build skills, and stretch imaginations. We are improving pronunciation, enunciation, projection, intonation, and listening skills, to name a few. We are in the dictionary daily looking up definitions and breaking down words into roots, suffixes, and prefixes.
Today we are reading Chapter 10, The Cattle on a Thousand Hills.
“One of our fundamental misunderstandings of spiritual maturity is thinking that it should result in self-sufficiency. It’s the exact opposite. The goal isn’t independence; the goal is codependence on God. Our desire for self-sufficiency is a subtle expression of our sinful nature. It’s a desire to get to place where we don’t need God, don’t need faith, and don’t need to pray. We want God to provide more so we need him less.” ”
Before Antonio was diagnosed with cancer, although I was raised in the church and had accepted Christ into my heart, I did not acknowledge God in the day-to-day. I was not cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. After Antonio was diagnosed with cancer, we made some critical changes. We had a large party for Antonio’s 39th birthday, and among my gifts to him were bracelets with “believe” stamped in the silicone as a gift to him and all of our guests. My brother, Jonathan, inspired the gift, prompting great thought about the word we would stamp. “Believe” became our battle cry. A friend gave me a garden stone with “Believe” stamped in it. At some point, I got the courage to place “Believe” on our dining room wall in a non-confrontational upper corner of an otherwise large blank wall.
Through the years, I continue to step into the fullness of what is means to believe. My course has been nonlinear.
“God will keep putting you in situations that stretch your faith, and as your faith stretches, so do your dreams. If you pass the test, you graduate to bigger and bigger dreams. And it won’t get easier; it’ll get harder. It won’t get less complicated; it’ll get more complicated. But complications are evidence of God’s blessing. And if it’s from God, then it’s a holy complication” ”
I keep getting distracted by the complications. Too often, I am surprised at how complicated it is. Other times I am encouraged when I remember that the process is refining me. I really need to remember that it is not about the complications, and it isn’t about me- it is about who God is.
God has seeded big dreams and goals within me to effect change, build a community to partner with me in all things business and life, and pray heaven here on earth. People are complicated and change is challenging- I wouldn’t have chosen those assignments for myself
One of my children was reading this out loud today, it is fitting to share.
“When we operate in faith, we aren’t risking our reputation we’re risking God’s reputation! And God can handle Himself just fine, thank you. You may doubt yourself because of your lack of education or lack of experience. But if God has called you, you aren’t really doubting yourself. You’re doubting God.
God doesn’t call the qualified. God qualifies the called.”
My assignment is clear. Ease is not the destination. I continue to “believe” and press on.
“ If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? ”
Praise God for tremendous friends who can encourage me in such times with a verse like this! I pray you are encouraged, too!
The last post I wrote was nearly two years ago. I have been grieving, slaying giants, raising champions, and growing in faith.