Growing into your Shoes

Sometimes it can seem like you leave the human race for a while. Many times we look at this as a bad thing but truthfully, sometimes it is what is needed. This feeling has been all to real to me over the past two months. Many times I have felt guilt over those I have not spoken too simply because time has flown in the midst of trial. I have had to take a breath and have a reality check with myself. What can I do right now? What is truly going to have to wait? I will return when it's over, I am not telling them good-bye, just see you in a bit.

Too often it is the innate reaction to fight change and be frustrated when our world is rocked. But what if it is going to sharpen you, soften you, and set you up for future blessings? Is this a process we should fight? I entered 2014 with the sense that change was brewing. Things were going to be different. I had a peace and excitement for what was to come because I knew with out doubt that 2014 was the year that everything changed for our family. All for the good of our family, THIS WAS OUR YEAR!

What I did not anticipate is that this may be accomplished through trails. At the end of the January my health was on the rocks with unseen complications that were going to require taking a step back and sometime to re-evaluate. But the most interesting part of it was through the whole process and uncertainty, I still knew this was going to be okay because this was our year for change. I began to have this peace and understanding that things were not going to go the way I thought, they were going to be better and in ways I would not understand. Everything was going to look foreign for a while. I was all of a sudden done fighting. I was now submitting, a submission that would leave some disappointed. Some feeling we no longer had a role in their lives. But there is one who has been clear. There is one who has held my hand and lead me like a child. "Not by the arm! Hold hands! Arms are not nice!" Thanks Bryce for the reminder that when the Lord has to grab our arm is because we are not willingly following His lead. Rather He is grabbing us for our own protection and correction. It is when we take His hand we submit and agree to follow.

God has us on a journey this year and all though it all looks different than we what we thought, He has been faithful. I am okay, just healing now, but my perspective is different. I have once again been brought back to full-time ministry opening a door for Chris that we never even thought to knock on. Bryce is continuing to teach us and is on a journey of his own that one day will become a great, victorious story. Judah, our lion, God continues to form him into a leader who will impact many I am certain. Right now at this peak we are looking over the valley with a little bit of puzzlement but this time, we are strangely eager to enter another valley to discover the peak at the end of it.

What if our unwillingness to expand our thoughts and possibilities was keeping us just at the crest of the peak? God has given each of us passions, and gifts. We tend to create our own purpose with those two components and although we believe we are following God's plan, sometimes we forget to ask in fear that He may say no. I encourage you to ask, because even if He says no, He has something great. Somethings you may have to leave for a while until they are perfectly positioned in His plan. But remember you'll come back, no need to say good-bye, just trust that if the tools and dreams are there, it's like a pair of shoes, sometimes we just need to grow into them and even if we don't fit in them at that present moment, don't get rid of them, set them aside knowing at the right time they will fit.