Today I'm getting really vulnerable and letting you in on the harder parts of this journey. This year has been hard. It's been filled with emotions. It's been battling through those emotions and wrestling down my actual faith to find joy in the hard times. I'm not talking about this beautiful baby whose name literally means "Brings Joy". I'm talking about in life, in the hard things, in the emotions. This little baby brings lots of laughs and love into our home, but she doesn't put money in the bank account and she doesn't help us find a house we can afford. She does quite the opposite, and if I'm really honest and vulnerable I've resented that a little...and then there's the loads of guilt that come just for thinking that. But she's cute and she's wonderful, so I push those emotions aside and choose joy.
"Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4) The Bible tells us to rejoice 216 times. Paul even says to rejoice in our suffering. In our house we use the phrase "Choose Joy!" when things don't go our way, or we are upset about something. We step back, look at the big picture, remembering we still have LOTS to be thankful for, and decide we can choose joy. I just never realized it's a faith step, not a way to control your emotions.
That's actually what I've always done. I've just pushed those hard and not so fun to deal with emotions to the side so the joy could win out, but it's been a hard year. I don't want to admit it's been a hard year, but I don't want to fake it any more. When I step back to look at the big picture I have struggled to find what it is I'm thankful for. Like I said, this precious cuddly baby brought with it resentment and guilt, so if that sweet smile couldn't help me wholeheartedly choose joy what would?
Faith is my strength, my spiritual gift, and it seemed as though it had run out. Choosing joy was an act of faith, but I had not realized that's ultimately what I was doing, because it always came easy. Then God said quit your job, sell your house...all of which we've done before and He's always come through, but this time it's different. This time it did't go as I expected. This time I obeyed and put myself and my family in a position where if he didn't come through, we wouldn't be able to make it...that's big faith, right? Well, we set it up, step by step we've followed what he told us to do, we took a leap of faith, and it's felt a lot like this...
When I first caught this on video I laughed until I almost peed my pants. (I was 9 months pregnant at the time.) However, at some point later that night, about the 100th time I watched it, my laughter turned into tears as I realized that's how I felt about our leap of faith. We took the leap for me to quit my job 2 years ago. We did as he said and took a big leap as we sold our house not knowing what was next. We anticipated our miracle. We watched and waited for the expected "what only God can do" end to our story, but it didn't come. The week before we closed on our house last December, we went out and rented the cheapest apartment we could find, only to be paying the same amount we would have been paying to stay in our beautiful home. Not only did it not make sense, but it hurt.
As I watched that video that night after everyone had gone to bed, I began to realize the reason the emotions had been so hard to control and simply choose joy was because I felt like God was the one who let me down. I couldn't simply push those feelings aside and choose joy. That was an act of faith, and my faith was jarred. To choose joy now was to fake my faith, and I felt it. I felt fake.
I felt fake in my quiet times, I felt fake in my answer to people when they asked "how are you?". I felt fake in my response to people as they made comments like "aren't you just loving being a girl mom?" I've never had to fake it before. I've always just believed God and taken him at his word, but how do I do that now when I feel like he pulled the ground out from under me?
Well, I can't say there's a formula for that, and I can't say I've done it well. What I can say is I've stopped pushing the feelings aside, and I've laid them all out before God. I've fought my way through them. I've felt a little like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum, and even at times a teenager fighting for my independence. Then there are the moments that I feel like a scared and sad little girl curling up in her daddy's lap to cry it out and try to gain understanding. I can say I relate to all the seemingly wishy-washy Psalms of David as he lashes out to God in the same breath as he states the truth about who he knows God to be. Although I have felt like I've had to fake my faith. I have never doubted who God is. Knowing he could simply answer all my questions with Isaiah 55:9 "my ways are higher than your ways..." I fought to understand what it is I actually believe through all the feelings.
It all comes down to this...My God didn't fail me. My faith didn't even fail me. My expectations did. Every time I've taken big steps of faith God has answered how I expected. This time he is doing immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine; it just looks different than I expected.
A few months ago I was singing worship songs to the Lord and I realized in all this emotion I've been waging war against my faith with, I was singing the words, but I wasn't feeling it wholeheartedly. I felt sad and repentant that I haven't been filled with faith during this season, that I, in fact, have been faith-less in the aftermath of my emotions and struggled to see all the things I have to actually be thankful for and choose joy. It was in the quiet moment between me and my Father where I simply heard him say, "Take the space you need. Feel it all out. I'm not upset about it. I am here. I am still at work.I love you more than you will ever be able to understand."
Fighting my way through these feelings has been one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I'm picking myself up again and holding tight to my faith. I'm still working on removing my expectations, but I'm learning to hope again, not in what God can do for me, but in HIM ALONE.
