Get Your Hopes Up
/Urgency and Change
I suppose I have to dig a little deeper after a surge of emotions on camera. Either that or not post. As of late, I have been sitting on posts. I even shared that I deleted one. Let’s work through this one
Life is full of change in varying degrees. I like routine. I like knowing what to expect. When Antonio was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer, I increased my expectations and for the first time in my life I hoped for a God sized miracle. It was bigger than me. It was out of my hands. I was depending on God to do only what he could. I still hoped for a miracle when Antonio was on a vent in the hospital while his 6’8 frame barely held 150 pounds. When his life support was removed, I held on to every heart beat. I climbed into his ICU bed and placed my head on his chest while holding my own breath. Waiting and hoping for what was medically impossible. Antonio died September 29, 2014.
That was my dude.
I was shell shocked. I put all my hopes in a miracle that did not happen. In fact, I made many decisions that depended on his survival. I was all in. As I started to process things on a very basic level, I simply believed in God’s plan for me and my girls. It is that truth that got me through moment by moment. As the fog lifted from the landscape of my life, I was surrounded by land mines and grace. Some of them are still going off.
At some point, I decided to write a book and then the subject matter of my book changed drastically and I launched Roadmaptoyourdreams.com Traditionally, I am not a dreamer, but my girls needed to know that anything and everything is possible. I had to take off my weighted blanket of realism and face change with urgency and intention.
About one year ago, I was introduced to the book Chase the Lion my Mark Batterson. I quickly followed the read with In a Pit on a Snowy Day also by Mark Batterson. It reinforced my courage to pursue something bigger than myself. Unfortunately, as I met opposition, I let it diminish my hopes and dreams.
It has been five years. I have hopes that I am afraid to share with you. I am grateful to continue to live an extraordinary life. Still, I want more. Yet, I fear disappointment. The bigger the hopes and dreams- the bigger risk for disappointment. I am risk adverse.
With the wild fires of change surround me, I am feeling unsettled and I want to take back control. My modus operandi is to retreat into self until I have regrouped and/or the fire has extinguished. In general, I want to withdraw from life, at large. Peace, quiet, routine, and control are my things. Right now, I don’t have any of those. My girls are bright, sparkly, and full of energy- for which I am thankful. Change continues to chase me like a pack of wild rabid dogs. I am constantly on defense. Recently, I have taken drastic measures to scale back and retreat into my comfort zone. I have made fewer posts and videos. I have tried to convince myself that my story is just one many. The added friction is that my old comfort zone is no longer comfortable. I want to be independent and self sufficient but what comes next requires something different. God’s grace has changed me. God has called me to love and re-establish community.
Then, right on time, I was introduced to a series called Crazy Faith, a sermon series from Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK. It is outrageous and extraordinary. It has challenged me in many ways. Most notably on my notion of hopes. I thought that I was being open to God’s plan for me. I know that God can “do immeasurably more than anything I could think or imagine” - so why think, imagine or hope for that matter? Just let God. It does not work that way.
This series challenged my current version of faith and belief. If faith is the substance of things hoped for- there is little room for faith if I do not have big hopes. I will exercise my faith by embracing my big hopes and dreams and wait for God to show up. I have a whole list of them that I have abandoned. I will share one hope with you this week. At one point, I hoped for a major publisher and an advance to complete my work which would culminate in celebration as a NYT best seller. Sound pretty lofty, right? So lofty, it sounds awfully like an excuse to delay writing my book while waiting for this to show up, right? So, I took matters into my own hands and decided to complete the first draft of my book by the end of 2019 calendar year. I am a lot of things but making excuses is not one of them. I have made some tremendous headway. I believe I can truly get it done before the new year.
But do you hear the changes I am going through in the last quarter of 2019? While the content I am working with for my book remains the same, the perspective is different. This project didn’t start with me. Writing a book was never what I wanted for myself. God planted this seed in my heart, he will see it through to completion. Everything that I have needed to transition into writing this book has shown up at just the right time, I am expecting the same here. I am hoping for something grand. I am exercising my faith muscle with declaration of big hopes.
Change will continue to happen and I am grateful for the challenge to see things from a new perspective.
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