He Doesn't Compare

I shared this week about the journey I am on to find emotional healing, but I am also pursuing physical healing.

It's hard for me to share that because I always compare my pain to others and often disqualify myself. I feel like I'm whining when I see people suffering from cancer or other debilitating illnesses.

Here's the thing though, life was NEVER meant to be compared!

Never.

God does not compare our journey to others. Our pain, our struggles, our dreams and visions; they are all our own. Each thing unique.

So I'm sharing from a place that is MY journey. Not to be compared.

I've struggled with joint problems since I became a CNA (certified nurses assistant) out of high school. I injured my shoulder lifting a man wrong. It was a significant injury that required physical therapy.

Well being the intelligent teenager I was, I stopped the PT after about a month. My shoulder has bothered me ever since.

Well after my second pregnancy I started running. I loved it! I was training for a half marathon in China with my sister-in-law when I tripped and fell and injured my knee.

It seemed like scrapes and bruises until I tried to run again.

No luck. It caused me too much pain.

I haven't been able to run since that fall.

Well my hips always bothered me when I ran, but when you run or exercise pain is kinda part of the gig, so I thought no big deal.

After we came back from China I started to have really bad hip pain on one side. It sucked to be in such constant pain.

We were in transition though and I didn't want to go to the effort of finding a doctor and then move and have to start all over again. So I waited.

When we got to the Springs I had to figure out what direction to go with my hip and getting the pain under control. I considered different options and talked to different people and finally decided to try the chiropractor.

The chiropractors I ended up going to did x-rays.

What they found was that my hips were 16mm. seperated. Meaning one was lower than the other and they were also tilting in different directions.

They gave me a game plan. I needed to wear a heel lift and I needed 6 months to a year of seeing them to try to correct this problem with my hips.

These chiropractors are Christians. Three amazing men that love Jesus. I love them and all the staff that work at this office, they are all wonderful people.

But I've been seeing them for 5 months and I haven't seen much of a difference in my pain.

Today I sat down with my Dr. and had a frank conversation. It went like this "This isn't working!"

He heard me out and was so kind and concerned telling me that this is not normal and that they want to do whatever they can to make this better. He took another x-ray. He told me that I probably have tendonitis or bursitis and that they're gonna figure out a different plan to help me get better.

Well I left feeling hopeful, but really at the same time I feel soo discouraged.

There is nothing like your body not working or causing you pain to make you turn to God and say "Really?" "Why?" or "Why don't you just fix this?!"

It's hard, frustrating and challenging to trust God when healing doesn't seem to be coming.

I'm 32 years old and a lot of times I feel like my body acts more like it's 80.

I don't know where this ends or if it ever ends outside of Heaven, but it's doing a good job of revealing my heart.

I'm sick of being in pain. It leaves me feeling so discouraged.

But I have to ask myself, does my Daddy care about me? Does he see me? Does he know me?

And sometimes I feel like the answer is NO. No he doesn't care, no he doesn't see, no he doesn't know, but those feelings are all big, fat, ugly lies.

The truth is that he hasn't left me. He does care, he does know, he does see.

And even though this may be a very small problem compared to the pain that many other people feel, he doesn't compare me or my pain to anyone else.

He sees me, he knows me and he cares and regardless of what the future holds he'll never leave me.

If you're the praying type, I would so appreciate any prayers that you send my way regarding this hip of mine.

Through the Muck and Mire

I've been pursuing healing.

I've known for many years that I needed to do this. 

When God brought us back from China one of the things he said to me was that it was going to be a time of healing. 

The thought of healing felt overwhelming and vague. 

I think the biggest thing I felt was "who can I trust with this?" 

There's a million counselors out there and a million different methods and thoughts on how it should be done. It felt so overwhelming. 

Thankfully this was something that God said was going to happen, so he was more concerned about making it happen than I was. 

Our first week in Colorado Springs we met an amazing couple that invited us to their church. We went and fell in love. Then there was a women's bible study I went to. I met a beautiful blonde there that said she wanted to hang out. While we were hanging out she shared about healing that she had found through the amazing woman that ran the bible study. 

Some people like to call these things coincidence. I call them divine intervention.

Another thing I had worried about was how I was going to afford this healing that I needed. Well as it turns out with this woman you paid what you could afford. 

It seemed clear that God was trying to show me something. 

It's funny though how much courage it takes to bite the bullet of healing. It took me about four months after knowing this information to make an appointment.

I think the hardest thing about walking towards healing is the fear that the pain will never go away. Wondering if it's all a waste to believe that the dead things inside of me could ever come back to life again.  

I don't need to go into details of what I've walked through. Most of us have walked through a lot of unbelievable things. Some of these things came from the choices that others made and some came from our own choices, but we've been hurt. And it turns out that the pain has become our norm. It's become like a heavy blanket wrapped around our shoulders. We've become used to the comfort of it, even if it hurts, it's familiar. 

It's not easy writing these things. It's a present vulnerability. I'm sure a lot of people would argue that it's way too personal to put out there for the whole world to know. That I'm oversharing. And maybe I am. 

But I think what I really want is for people to see YOU'RE NOT ALONE. Whatever personal struggle you are battling. We're all there. We're all trying to find our way through the muck and mire . 

This phrase is so profound for me because a couple Sundays ago I was at Church trying my best to worship when God gave me such a clear picture of him carrying me through a swamp, or in other words carrying me through the muck and mire.

 The verse that God has been speaking to me day and night is Exodus 14:14 "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

I recently had a beautiful woman pray over me and the word she got for me was Fighter. I'm a fighter. I am not good at letting others fight for me, I'm not good at letting God fight for me. 

But I believe that is his very intention - to fight for me. To fight for my freedom, to fight for my joy, to fight for my destiny. 

Regardless of my feelings I believe that he will carry me through this swamp. He won't get tired and set me down half way through. 

Phil. 1:6 

"And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his good work until it is finally finished on the day that Christ Jesus returns. 

So if you're on a similar journey, stop and ask him to pick you up and carry you through your own muck and mire. 

He will fight for you.  

Nothing is Wasted

As I laid in my bed tonight my mind raced with all kinds of thoughts from the day, thoughts for tomorrow and thoughts from the past......

Sometimes at night old junk finds its way in. Old pain. Old regrets.

Disappointments, the woulda, shoulda, coulda's.......Failure.

The "why didn't I's" and the "why didn't they's".

It's so crazy how long we carry these things around.

Such a heavy load.

My husband said this week "We are allergic to failure."

Is there a human on earth that has never failed, faltered, or screwed it all up?

We've all felt the pain of failure and yet we hate it soo much.

We beat ourselves up and we beat up others over these mistakes. These broken pieces can cause such distraction in our lives.

So tonight, a story.

A few years ago we fostered a couple precious babies. Even though it was only a few years ago it feels 100% accurate to say that we were young and dumb.....

We had a 6 year old, two 4 year olds and a 1 year old and we took in twin 2 year olds...... if you do the math that's 6 kids under 6 and 3 of them were in the baby-toddler world.

Yea.....interesting decision....I know.

We prayed about this decision. We talked to others about this decision. We felt sure we were doing the right thing.

Well to make a long story short, these little twins were traumatized, they had been newly abandoned and were going through what we can only imagine as hell.

We were not prepared for this trauma.

These little babies were in the worst kind of heart pain a person, little or not, can go through. That pain and despair came out for us to handle, but try as we did, we just couldn't handle it.

We should have handled it.

We should have known.

We should have been ready....

but we weren't.

We were an absolute mess.

We were sleep deprived, clueless and helpless to give these babies what they needed.

 And we had 4 other LITTLE kids that needed us.

"What were we thinking" must have crossed my mind a thousand times a day.

To make matters worse, in the middle of this chaotic situation I got pregnant.... go figure!

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have absolutely horrible pregnancies. Horrible, horrible, horrible!

So you can just imagine how that went over......

It felt like the world was coming to an end. It was the worst, hardest, most painful time in our lives.

And Matt would agree and that's saying something......

We were in over our heads.

We had signed up to be heroes, but instead were getting the beating of a lifetime.

We called our friends and said we can't do this anymore, you have to move the kids to another family.

It completely killed us to say those words.

The twin angels were with us for 6 months. We loved them as our own and our hearts broke when they left.

Really, I don't think our hearts ever got put back together.

We were shattered.

Shattered by our failure. Shattered by the pain. Shattered by disappointment.

We had prayed. We had sought counsel and yet here we were picking up the pieces of a mess I can't describe.

It was the mess of broken hearts.

There is a verse in 1 Corinthians 15:58  that says

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord [always doing your best and doing more than is needed], being continually aware that your labor [even to the point of exhaustion] in the Lord is not futile nor wasted [it is never without purpose].

Nothing is wasted when you do it for Jesus and really because we serve a God that redeems everything and makes everything new, nothing is wasted, period! 

I still lay in bed at night thinking about the pain and choices of the journey we walked. 

If feels messed up to me, even after those beautiful babies were adopted together into a beautiful christian home. They are thriving, they are loved and they are chosen ........

and even then, my heart hurts. 

God is present in failure. He is present in shame. He is present in weakness. He is present in mistakes. He is present in brokenness. 

I don't get to tie this up with a bow and he's present in that. 

Because nothing is wasted. It all comes out beautiful and redeemed and made new.......

it's not the end.

Nothing is wasted. 

My True Identity

It's been almost a month and a half since I've last written.....I haven't felt brave lately.

I've been hiding. Not wanting to offer anything, because of the fear that what I offer isn't enough.

We're in a new enviorment, we're the new kid on the block, and it's made me measure myself and my abilities.

And I've decided that I don't measure up to this huge campus full of amazing missionaries.

That's the first time I've said that, admitted it to myself, but I know that's why I've been hiding.

It's crazy how we can feel something so deeply sometimes and not even know that we are carrying this huge weight around; a yoke that doesn't belong on our shoulders.

I've been carrying this yoke of wanting to be accepted in a new place and at the same time afraid that I have nothing to offer.

So then an inner fear or hiding comes telling me I'm not good enough, talented enough, smart enough, or spiritual enough to belong. It tells me I should bury what I have so no one can see, so no one can reject me.

I have been so blessed by this community and I know that this is exactly where we are supposed to be, but to be a part of this place and to thrive I need to shed some lies.

To lay down this heavy yoke and pick up the truth.

The truth being that I am enough! I am good enough, talented enough, smart enough, and more spiritual than I'll ever know this side of heaven.

I have to pick up the truth that my value is only based on my Daddy God's opinion.

We're moving again.....into a very nice place here on base and do you know what I'm feeling about moving into this very nice place.....I don't deserve it.......I haven't earned it......who am I to live in this beautiful apartment....

A word that God spoke over me when I went to the Brave conference in April and then again a couple weeks ago through a sister was the verses in Song of Songs 2:10-13 that says

"Arise my darling, my beautiful one and come with me. See! The winter has past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms it's early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me."

For me this is about my identity. This is about who I am.

God has been asking me to lay down this yoke of lies and to walk into this new place of my true identity.

My old identity is gone, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. My new identity has come: Flowers appear on the earth.

So I don't just think that this is just for me, but for all of you that have struggled with your identity.

Your Daddy sees you. He wants to take off the heavy burden that you've put on yourself to be enough or maybe that others have put on you.

He is calling you to come with him and see as he see's. To walk into a new place armed with the truth of who he says you are, his darling; his beautiful one.

I know that this is a season of me walking in a new level of truth I haven't known before and I know that he's empowering me and he wants to empower you, his darling, his beautiful one.

Lets together say yes to that truth and lay down our yoke of lies.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas filled up with truth and your true identity.

The Next Level

Well, we moved...again. Except this time it seems a bit on the permanent side.

We got back from China sometime the end of last November which means it's almost been a year! How is that even possible!!?

We came back and spend about 9 days with our very good friends in California. Then we were in Minnesota with Matt's family for about a month. Then we were with my family for 5 months and from there we moved into my brothers house for the summer.

We got here to Colorado Springs at the end of August. We then lived in guest housing for two weeks and then we moved into temporary housing for about 2 months and NOW we're in our own Hotel apartment! Which includes: a kitchen; that is not in a bathroom, two bathrooms and three large rooms and an amazing view of Pikes Peak.

Wheew! Makes me tired just writing all that. It has been such a hard and crazy year, but completely filled with Gods unending faithfulness.

When we moved in here though I cried and I cried (you're probably wondering why the heck I cry so much, well people, that is just me) and I couldn't figure out what my problem was until I had a little processing session with a close friend of mine. She started asking me how our new place was and guess what....I stared crying.....yea, what's new.

So I told her "I honestly don't know what's wrong with me" and she replied to me with all the grace and love a true friend can have " Well, saying yes to one thing is saying no to another."

It wasn't in that moment that the statement hit me, but it just kept rolling around in my head and then BAM, I got it.

Our life didn't really start here in the States till about two months ago. We were in limbo for almost a whole year, which we needed, but it kept culture shock and this huge move we've made at bay. But moving into this place felt like all the transition and limbo world came to an abrupt halt and we made a statement saying "We're staying!"

It just hit me, WE'RE STAYING. This is it, it's real, this is your home and you're gonna be here for a while. Maybe even a long while.

Saying yes to one thing is saying no to another.

We're saying yes to the States, we're saying yes to this base and we're saying no to going back to China.

The enormity of the commitment of staying isn't something we've faced for a while. Even through all of Lily's adoption we PRAYED we would be leaving. Everyone knew there was an end in sight. Here though I feel like God is asking us to put down roots. Roots to me translates-no end in sight.

I love it here. I love the people, the community and all that God is doing in unreached Nations through this base, but staying without an end in site scares the crap outta me.

I have always known I would go and our life has been such a whirlwind from the very beginning. There's always been moving in our future, I honestly don't know what the heck roots even looks like and quite frankly I'm scared of the word BOREDOM and monotony.

Our life has been kinda like a frantic rush from one thing or another. Very fast paced and that has made us who we are, but now things are changing and my heart knew that before my mind did.

God has a new plan of action for us, a new way of looking at life, a new way of living life.

God gave me a picture in church a couple weeks ago of the ground breaking open and one half of it shifting up. I saw myself climb up to the higher level of ground and I saw wide open space in every direction in front of me. God spoke to me about this being the next level that he's called us to.

We by God's mercy and grace have made it to the next level, but now it's a whole new ball game. Kinda like when you're playing a video game and you get to that next level and nothing is the same and you have to learn by repetition what this new level is about.

Monotony means, in part, repetition.

So this is a thing God is doing in us, but I also feel like this might really relate to some of you as well. The thing I feel God saying is that HE will equip us with the tools and resources to take on this new level. Whatever it is that you need from God in this next season why not ask him? He's doing a new thing and he wants you to know that he's got your back! You are not alone on this new plateau, but there is excitement and joy. Don't be afraid of what he's calling you to do, he will equip you.

So I'm stuck in bed with the flu, but it's kinda nice to have an excuse to stop, rest and process. So thanks for letting me do that. Let's go out like courageous warriors and conquer these new plateaus!

The Outpour

God has been POURING out on me in the last two months.

It has been such an out-pour that I can honestly say I don't know if I've ever experienced anything like it in my life.

He's speaking so clearly and then just in case my human weakness gets in the way and I doubt, he's been confirming his words. It has been MIND BLOWING.

He's giving me pictures and verses and physical things that I need and things that I WANT. My kids have been blessed, Matt has been blessed. It feels like anything that we come in contact with is a blessing.

It's craziness.

It's made me so aware of his goodness, but not just in what he's doing now, but what he did in our last season.

We walked through the hardest season of our lives the last 4 years. It was so painful.

He was there though and now that I'm here basking in his absolute abundance I can see all the amazing work that he did in that season.

I'm walking in a measure of faith that I've never walked in before because of the strength that I gained in that desert season and to top that off, there's been JOY.

Joy overflowing in every area. It's unbelievable!

Our Pastor in Rapid City gave me a word about this a couple months back. He said " You guys haven't walked in joy for a long time, but joy is coming. "

I honestly thought "Yea, I doubt that."

I was filled with cynicism.

But then the joy showed up and it's been such powerful stuff. It's bringing new life to things that were dead.

To put it simply; he's been blessing our brains out.

Today he spoke to me out of Jeremiah 31:3
 " I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt..."

God is doing some serious rebuilding in my heart. He's reworking the interior and he's painting all the walls yellow.

I can see so clearly now that everything we walked through in our last season has been made into beauty. It has become a crown on our heads.

Thinking of that season may always contain some pain, I don't know, but what I do know is that it was all worth it. Every. single. day.

The thing that God has been showing me is that he's there and he sees. He sees you and he's there. He sees you when it's all going your way and your basking in his glorious light and when laughter is flowing and the sun is shining and he's there. He also sees you when it feels like your walls are collapsing in on you and you can't get out of bed to face your life and he's there. He is building strength into you even in that very painful and dark place. Either way, he's sees you and he's there.

Today I see that he is our always present Father and I am so thankful that whether in good times or bad that he never lets go.

Dreaming a Heart Dream

I'm sitting here in my jammies and there are things I should be doing. Like going to the store to buy groceries or cleaning my very messy house.

I'm choosing not to do those things right now though because I have this thing on my heart and it's important.

Today my heart is overflowing with the goodness of God! That is part out of the kindness that he has lavished on me, but part of that is out of what I don't yet see, but claim in faith.

We had a night of women's ministry here last night.

 It was amazing.

One of the things that was talked about was how Satan comes after our hearts. The biggest way that he does that is laying a foundation of lies; little lies that go mostly unnoticed, but unchecked become giants.

Well one of my giant lies that I've listened to for years is "You're not capable".

This lie has come in many different forms sounding like "You could never do that!" "You're not smart." "You're not good enough." "So and so could do that so much better than you." And on and on it goes.

I can write all those things and see so clearly that they are lies, I know in my head what the truth is, but the enemy hasn't come against my mind; he's been coming for my heart.

Well for a couple years now I've been interested in midwifery and doula-ing....is there a real word for that? Doula-ing is gonna have to work for now. Please just smile and nod when I use this word.

I've struggled though with feeling that even though I would love to do those things I'm just not the right person for the job. I don't have the certain personality type that makes a good midwife or doula.

One of the things that was talked about at our woman's time was the things that we feel disqualify us from pursuing our dreams.

I've convinced myself that I'm disqualified because I'm not capable, because of my personality and because "I just don't have what it takes." Those are the lies I've bought into.

The truth is that midwifery and being a doula are in my HEART to do. It's a dream and here's where God's goodness come into play; there is doula training here next month.

Smile.

"God you're funny!"

I had no idea that they did anything of the sort here, but God's giving me an opportunity to step out and say "Satan you're a liar!" "I am capable!" "I can be the PERFECT person to help people in this way!" " I CAN do this!"

My Daddy SEES. He sees my heart and he satisfies my desires with GOOD things.

I would rather hide in a hole than do this doula training, but in his LOVE and CARE he is not content to leave my heart tangled in the lies. He calls me out. He's giving me an opportunity to step into the light and say "THIS IS WHO I AM!"

Honestly though, it's out of our reach financially. I don't say that in any way to get money from you, truthfully I don't, please don't feel any guilt to give. I only say that because I really believe that God wants me to do this training and I really believe by faith that he is going to completely cover the cost.

This is HIS goodness. If he asks me to do something that I can't afford it's his job to pay.

I am not a doula or a midwife, but what I am is CAPABLE IN HIM!

So some of the questions posed to us last night were: What fears do I need to face? What does it look like for me to come alive? What things are lying dormant in my heart? What are the lies that are holding you back?

I pose these questions to you because I know I'm not the only person who struggles with lies. I also know that God cares just as deeply about you coming fully alive as he does me. He is for us and he wants to see our deepest heart dreams come true. So I want to challenge you to take a minute and ask yourself these questions. You might be surprised what you find.

I'm believing for break through and freedom for me and for you to walk fully in who God has created us to be!