My Current Grace

If you haven't heard me say it before I am saying it now, I am not, by nature, a positive person. I am by nature a person who sees the glass half full.

What a pain, right?

Seeing life this way is not pleasant and even more, it's not Godly.

So because Jesus loves me so stinkin much he is not content to leave me in this unpleasant place. He is dead set on giving me another perspective.

I started following this blogger a couple years ago.  This woman had cancer, a husband and 4 beautiful children. She wrote about her journey with cancer; her journey through hell. Here's the thing though, she never once made it out to be hell, even though we all know that's what it was.

The two biggest things she talked about were grace and kindness.

Who talks about grace and kindness when you're going to die? She did and it was amazing, life changing even, to read her words.

Kara passed away a while back. A heart retching thing, even from afar, but she left her mark on anyone that had contact with her, even if it was only through a blog.

So in our current situation the highs are high and the lows are low and I often struggle with being taken over by it all. It feels silly saying that after talking about such a heroic woman, but that's just my reality, silly or not, so here's my goal: FIND THE GRACE.

It's there, every single day, no matter how wonderful or horrible the situation. The grace is there.

So I've been keeping my eyes open, seeking it out and purposefully looking for it.

Yesterday a piece of grace was my kids playing happily TOGETHER without fighting. Parents out there, you understand what a huge miracle this is, right? Then there were new friends that came to our door and hung out. Today the grace was sunshine and a new doughnut place. A few days ago the grace was seeing the sunrise and having people pray joy over me.

Every day the grace looks different. Every day we run the risk of missing it by focusing on the negatives in our lives. For example; my kitchen is a bathroom right now.....for reals. I could really make that into a huge thing and miss all the beauty that is in the situation. And when I say beauty what I mean is humor. Humor is beauty and we'll be getting a laugh out of this one for years to come.

The other day I was feeling so overwhelmed with life and I was thinking of all the things that are gonna happen in this next month. It felt like chaos and I was sobbing. Until God gave me this amazing revelation; there is no grace in the future.

It's so powerful I have to say it again; there is NO grace in the future. The grace we are given is CURRENT grace.

When I get sucked into all the overwhelming things of today or the overwhelming things of tomorrow, I am forfeiting grace because I'm not living in THE MOMENT!

And who can live without grace? No wonder I was overwhelmed and sobbing.

I need grace more than the very air I breath. I cannot come against any of the hard things in life without it, and neither can you.

So where is your grace today. Are you looking for it? I know I am. I am on the watch for where God is showing up in the little, but miraculous current grace. I refuse to be pulled into a place that is absent of God's grace. Let's live in the moment and watch for the grace and know that even in hard things God has always got our back.

Also if any of you are interested Kara has a blog called Mundane Faithfulness and a book called the Hardest Peace. The book and blog are both amazing! Check'em out. If you buy the book the money goes to her kids.

Our HOME!!

We've stepped into this new season of our adventure. God has called us to work with YWAM in Colorado Springs. So many people have asked us this week "So what are you guys gonna do here?"
Answer: I have no idea.
Ha!
Really though, we don't know what God has in mind for us or why he has led us here. It's just a walk of faith. Which really I love in the in-between moments of not feeling scared to death.

So the YWAM base here is a hotel. How awesome is that! I've always really loved hotels. Who doesn't like the feeling of being on vacation!?

Well now we will be experiencing that feeling 24-7 because we now call this hotel home!
It makes me smile SO big just saying that: HOME!!

Yep, we will be living in a suite of sorts. Two rooms combined will make up our home for the next little while. ( we may move into 3 rooms after a few months)

I am so beyond excited about this living situation. God providing us a place to live is AMAZING! We are rejoicing over that BIG TIME!

Really though I just love the story we're living.

Who gets to put their family of 7 in two rooms and call it fun!?? Not a lot of people and I think it is so awesome that someday we'll have these conversations with our kids about the time we lived in a hotel and enjoyed a permanent vacation!

Also our hotel home has a swimming pool and built in friends and neighbors. Need a cup of sugar? Just walk next door! Yea, I know, you're jealous. It is pretty stinkin awesome.

Since we've been here God has been BLOWING us away! Provision has just poured out! From new friends giving us furniture and offering to borrow us a few things, to finding a fridge for 75 bucks! We have been finding GREAT deals and I don't doubt for a minute that God has our backs.

The kids will even be going to school in our hotel and I get to be the kindergarten teacher two mornings a week. Watch out 5 year old children I'm gonna rock your world!!

God's goodness is surrounding us and carrying us day by day.

So we don't know what we're doing here and we have no plan, we're just following our Daddy. The thing is though that our God KNOWS! He knows why we're here, he knows what he wants to do with us and that means I don't have to worry! YIPEEE!!

I'm so encouraged by his faithfulness. So encouraged. He is faithful!

Thank you to everyone that has prayed for us or listened to us whine in this process of transition our lives have been in.

The whining and transition aren't over or gone. There will still be a lot of bumps ahead, the thought of what I'll do with the kids in the winter has crossed my mind a few times..... but right now I'm resting and praising and enjoying this home that I've been given.
THANK YOU GOD!!

Goodness!

Broken, desperate, weak, pathetic, lame, anxious, and scared to DEATH.
These are the words that describe me this week.

Don't those words just stir happy feelings within you!?

If I could do exactly what I feel in this moment I would be in the fetal position rocking myself.

Seriously.

It is real.

This week we found out that our potential housing was on the fritz.

My brother and his family moved back to their home; which we are currently residing in. "Sorry family, we're still here...." There's 7 of us and we're not quiet. You love us right??

My sister is getting married so everyone and their mom is coming to town. I know most of you can understand how the word wedding equals the word crazy.

Yep.

We have a family picture happening tomorrow in which we should all be wearing solid colors. I had a break down over this information and cried for an hour and I said to my sisters "Pictures are the devil; if you want a picture PAINT ONE!". I know. I am soooo nice!

Yes. It's been a looooowww place that I've been hanging out in.
And maybe that sounds funny or entertaining, but let me tell you it has been anything but.

I have been absolutely consumed with fear. Filled up and overflowing with FEAR. Not Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, but fear.

I texted a woman I consider a mentor and told her I was feeling heartbroken that we didn't have a place to live and that I was sick to death of transition and you know what she said to me???

"DON'T BE AFRAID!"

She just cut straight through all my emotional garbage and NAMED IT. I didn't say a thing about being afraid and I honestly was completely unaware at that point that I even was afraid.

All my anxiety, all my stress and all the other million yucky feelings I've been feeling all come straight down to that.

I'm scared.

Scared of what you might wonder?

Well I'm scared that I'm gonna eat myself to death because of all the stupid stress; there's that. (Emotional eating is also the devil)

 I'm mostly scared that we are going to live in a perpetual state of transition and that I won't survive.

I get pretty consumed with the idea that "I cannot do this". Do you ever say that? It's a favorite of mine. In times of great difficulty I scream at the top of my lungs "I CANNOT DO THIS!" When that happens Matt knows that things are really going well. God bless my husband.

I saw a book this week and the title was something like "Sayings for the Hard Times". Something like that, anyway, I flipped through it and on the page I stopped on, it said " You need to care more about God's glory than you do about your own relief" I pondered that a bit, and then I put the book down.

It's funny though how sometimes you can see something like that and it gets burned in your brain.
And I do mean burned. It would not leave. It was suck in my head. I honestly hate that book. Why did I ever pick it up. I would really like to unread that because I seriously value my comfort.

 This week I have not cared at all about God getting any glory out of our situation, all I want is RELIEF! Pure and simple relief. I've had it all summer and it's been beautiful and the minute it's taken I'm screaming for it back.

I have NO idea what our future holds. It all feels very vague and terrifying and I hate that, but God is still good. Even though I SUCK!! Seriously, I do, I really, really do. I have an ugly heart sometimes......most times, but even then, God is GOOD!

I know that saying is so cliche and it probably holds a lot of pain for some people. I know it did for me. For years when we were in China, stuck there waiting on Lily's adoption, I was so angry at God and I felt that he was anything but good. I felt so abandoned by Him. He saw where I was and He sent some awesome people to me.
Matt and I met with them for three days. We cried and talked and poured out our pain. Then God brought healing and opened my eyes to see how he had been with us through it all. My angry heart that was full of pain got softer that day and I saw his goodness again.

Today I'm writing to myself to remind my heart that he is GOOD and that it doesn't depend on me or how good I am or if I earn it. We love to earn it, don't we? My Daddy doesn't give me his goodness because I earn it, but he pours it out because he loves me. So I am claiming in faith that I am in waiting for the out pouring of his goodness!

 And the truth is I really cannot do it. I CANNOT DO IT! I have no power in this situation to make housing magically appear. I truly wish I did, but I don't. I know that God has lead us to this point and he has provided and I know he will continue to provide. So I'm gonna just sit and wait for his glory to fall and I might go insane before that happens, but that won't stop him from coming.

Letting Go of the Old and Embracing the New

We've been back in America for 8 months now.

 Our whole family struggled through adjusting back, but I would say and I think Matt would agree; I took it the hardest.

This is pretty normal for me, I just don't adjust easily to new things.

On one hand I love new things and crave change, but when it comes to living it out, I tend to have a temper tantrum and cling to my old ideas of what is good.

So when we came back I struggled and I cried, A LOT.

Change means loss and loss is painful. Letting go is painful.

I was 9 years old when God told me I was going to China to be a missionary. For so many years I fought that and then after finally choosing to say yes to China I then had to wait for the right time. I was 24 when Matt and I moved our two small girls across the ocean; Sydney was 2 and a half and Aubrey 3 months.

I went expecting huge things, but was sorely disapointed with our less than spiritual lives. I learned how to speak Chinese, how to ride the bus and hail a cab. I took my daughter to school and picked her up. I learned how to cook and where to buy butter. Really though, my life wasn't anything special.

However, after time passed I began to see all the huge things God was doing; in me. I was growing, changing and maturing. I became more of who I was meant to be in China.

So when God started showing us that our time there was over, I felt heartbroken. It felt so unfinished. It felt like we hadn't completed our mission; whatever it may have been.

Sometimes we have to let things die if we want to see new life.

And so in these last 8 months I've struggled to let China go and make room for what is next. China left it's mark on me and whenever I think of it I'm sure it will bring sweet memories.

The thing I didn't realize back 22 years ago, when God first spoke to me, was that China was just one of the chapters, not the whole book.

And so now we are moving on to another chapter of our story. This chapter begins in Colorado Springs, where we'll continue to work with YWAM.

God has led us to this place and we go with peace and excitement knowing that our adventure continues. Only God knows what's in store, but I have come to the place where I can let go of what's behind and take hold of what's ahead.

We have three more weeks here in Rapid City and then we'll be moving. We're still not sure of where we'll be living so we would appreciate prayers for God's perfect provision.

Thanks for sharing in our adventure.

Anger; My Enemy

I have struggled with anger.

I don't think that that's a statement that a lot of people make openly.

And why not?

Because it's shameful. It's a reminder of how broken we are and most the time we don't like to be reminded of our brokenness or our failures.

We would rather keep those sides of us hidden in the dark, away from attention and what probably most of us believe will be oncoming judgment or rejection.

So we don't talk about our faults, instead we keep them hidden away from the light, when the light is the one thing that will bring us healing.

Anger started rearing it's ugly head in my teens, but any time I had an explosion I was drunk or on drugs. So I was convinced it wasn't me.

Then I got married at the young age of 20. Twenty years old; I was a baby. I knew nothing about real life or marriage or the pressures that Matt and I would face.

Lucky me.

Anger didn't take long to show up.

Marriage has a way of exposing those broken places in us, doesn't it?

I remember that first bad fight about one or two months in when I threw a spoon across the room and it got stuck in the wall.

Yea.

Anger can be like being drunk. You cause so much destruction and then it's like you wake up out of a daze shocked at the scene around you.

I battled my anger alone for a long time. Always making excuses, always telling myself that it was normal, although I knew it wasn't.

It was like I had a little red button that said "don't push" and if it ever got pushed you had better get out of the way.

I grew up around rage and seeing it in myself was painful.

The pain I was capable of causing shocked me. I couldn't believe that this was me.

It was a very painful time.

But finally I started talking.

It was hard.

It was hard to talk about who I was behind closed doors. It was shameful, but I was sick of hiding this dark secret.

It didn't come out all at once or with one person for a long time, but I slowly started revealing my struggle with anger.

I began to dig into a deep place in myself: a place that was filled with a lot of pain and the more I dealt with the pain the more the anger lost it's control over me.

I've come to believe that anger is just a disguise for pain. That red button the one that said "don't push" was actually pain.

Bringing my struggle to the light was the best decision I have ever made because darkness loses it's grip in the light.

Conquering anger has been a 10 year battle for me, but I can SEE the freedom that I am finding. I can see the healing that has happened in my heart one day at a time.

I know that the journey isn't over, but I have found the tools to help me walk in freedom.

Some people might wonder why the heck I would share such personal things on such a public forum. Well I share because I was there and I know the darkness, I know the feeling of hopelessness that can be so all consuming. Feeling alone really is the worst feeling in the world.

I have found hope and freedom and I want to let others know that there is hope. Maybe your struggle isn't anger, maybe it's porn or fear or depression or self hatred or any other thing that steals your joy.

I want to encourage you; TALK TO SOMEONE. Find someone to share with. Even if all the voices in your head tell you that they will condemn you, judge you, or reject you. Fight against those voices and share your struggle with someone. Maybe a friend, a parent, a pastor, but share with someone.

We weren't meant to journey alone in our struggle. We are all struggling with something, so whatever your struggle is you need to know, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

In the end though I believe the only one who can offer complete healing and freedom is Jesus. I would have NEVER found freedom without him.

Isaiah 61
"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners"

God is the one who longs for you and me to be free from our broken hearts and the darkness that tries to take control of our lives. So turn to someone, but ultimately we need him to intervene on our behalf; which he promises to do when we invite him.

The Restoration of Rest

Psalm 91:1 "Whoever dwells in the in the shelter of the most High will rest in the shadow of the almighty."

Psalm 23:2 " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul."

Being where we are in this season I have found 'rest' and 'not wanting' difficult things to comprehend. By nature I am not good at resting, I'm much better at working and getting things done by myself, or at least that's what I tell myself. Yea, good one Heather.

Yesterday we celebrated Fathers Day a day late by going out to Devils Tower and a near by reservoir to enjoy the country and make some fun memories. We had an amazing time together. It's been raining a ton here in South Dakota so everything is green and beautiful. I've never thought of South Dakota as beautiful, but everywhere I looked made me feel like I was seeing a little bit of Heaven.

In one place we drove past a field that was filled with sheep. There were sheep everywhere and there were a few that were laying down in green grass with a stream near by. It was truly beautiful and seeing it made these verses come to life for me.

The sheep looked so peaceful not at all worried or anxious or running around trying to figure out their lives. Nope, they were just resting, not wanting anything, but resting.

 Oh to be a sheep, right!? To be able to tune out all of our responsibilities and worries and fears and  just rest.

It's amazing how something so simple becomes so complicated. We fight against it like it's our job. Or if you're like me you feel completely guilty and useless if you stop for one minute.

God had to know how hard it would be for us, didn't he? He had to know that we would struggle with the concept of resting and that's why it says "He makes me lie down...". Or maybe it's more He invites me...?

God has been inviting me to rest. To stop trying to work it out, to stop trying to figure it out, to stop being fearful and filled with anxiety and to just rest!

Our culture has filled us with so many lies, a couple of my favorites are  'God meets you half way' or 'You do your part and he'll do his'. I'm sorry, but no! He comes the whole way and holds out his hand and says "Come and rest."

Today I really feel like he's not just speaking to me, but to you saying "Won't you come and rest. Won't you let me work it out? Stop trying to make it work in your own power, let me take care of it."

What is it that you're trying to work out in your own power?

It's never easy, but I know that God is so glorified when we say yes to trusting him and resting. So today I choose that.

Overcoming Insecurity

From a very young age I remember feeling a sense that I wasn't special. I think my first memories start in the second grade. There were these two girls that were best buddies and I so badly wanted to be friends with them, but I always felt like I was on the outside. I remember one of them allowed me to color with her crayons, but then got mad at me for 'coloring too hard'. I compared myself to them and felt like I never measured up. It's almost unbelievable to me that at the young age of 7 I was already very aware of what insecurity was. Of course I didn't know the name for it, but the feelings were already very developed. In every grade it was the same story, there were always 'those girls' that I compared myself to, that I wanted to be, but was never good enough for. It was something I battled silently, alone.

In high school my battle only increased; I would do ANYTHING to be liked, accepted, included. I had no self worth that was not given to me by people. I did a lot of things in those years that were soul killing, almost like I gave my soul away in exchange for love, or what I perceived to be love.

God did a lot of miracles to get me out of that deep, dark place. He brought change and healing that were supernatural. It's a journey though; often healing is a long, long road.

After high school I decided to go to YWAM (Youth With A Mission) as penance for my crimes. I thought "Ok God I'll give you this time, but then I want my life back". Well, we all know that's a joke. My life got changed and I knew that I wasn't going anywhere and then to top it all off I fell in love.

So I became a missionary and got married, I had it all together.....or not. Matt and I's first year of marriage was a train wreck. Now Matt is not perfect and he has his issues like anyone, but I can tell you that that first year was ALL me. I thought marriage would cure me and my pain. No more value problems, my husband said I had value. No more insecurity, I was wanted. Except it wasn't enough...still. Here I was a MISSIONARY and a wife and my heart was empty and hurting.

I remember the first time it came to a head we were in China, it was Dec. 2004 and I was having PROBLEMS. We were assistant leaders on this trip with maybe 10 students and I caused more problems than any of the students. I was a mess of insecurity. If anything marriage and missions only brought my insecurity out of hiding. I was constantly afraid that my husband was looking at other women. If he looked sideways I was there to point a finger in his face and cause a big scene. Embarrassing, I know.  Finally our leaders sat us down and confronted me and my problems. After some investigating our leader, the husband of the two, said "Heather you have pride"
WHAT?? I've just poured my heart out to you about my pain and insecurities and you want to say I have pride!?? I know the thoughts I was thinking in that moment weren't pleasant.

He then went on to explain his diagnosis. God says you are perfect, but you have lifted your opinion of yourself above his saying 'No, I'm not perfect, I'm garbage' and that is pride.

I continue to struggle with insecurity, but 10 years ago I learned that the tree is insecurity, but the root is pride. My struggle comes and goes and there are times when it's almost not even there, but lately I've been battling. Once again feeling like I'm not enough; not wanted or valued. So yesterday I was spending time with Jesus and asking him to speak to me about how he sees me and he said "Heather you are magnificent" The meaning for magnificent is 'impressively beautiful, elaborate, extravagant; striking. And guess what? That is who I am.

My way of overcoming insecurity is by saying "YES this is TRUE". Today take a minute to ask your Daddy God how he sees you and then do something amazing, BELIEVE what he says.

We can journey together in this battle and we can win when we choose to believe truth. I have not arrived in this. I'm still a mess of insecurity a lot of days, but I'm growing, changing and learning who I truly am more every day.