Life Update
It has been nine months since I began this new journey of blogging. I have been journaling since I was a teen, I have only shared a few of my journal entries with a very small group of people. That was when I was eighteen years old and had traveled to a country in Central Asia for missions. Even though I had never traveled anywhere outside the state without my parents until then, I remember feeling no fear as I packed my suitcases for that journey.
Those who know me personally know that now I find it very difficult to travel. As a matter of fact, travel makes me physically ill. I prefer to stay in the comfort and safety of my home, my hometown, and remaining as close as possible to the solid ground beneath me.
Venturing out into new places has definitely become something I put much more thought into. Even beginning this blog was something that I took time to think through and weigh out. Yet, here I am, nine months into this journey and I am thoroughly enjoying every step of the way.
Three months into beginning blogging, I was offered an opportunity to start a business. If you read my first post about the challenges I faced in 2018, you know the thoughts I had to overcome regarding starting a business. You can scroll back to that post and read it to get the full story, but I will give you a quick re-cap. I had several years of failures, among them failing to start a business. But at the end of that struggle, I heard God speak softly and directly into my heart to try again. I obeyed that voice, and when I felt the tugging at my heart to start blogging, I stepped over the memories of my past experiences, over all the reasons of why I shouldn’t, and I started blogging.
When I was offered the opportunity to try this new business , my past experiences resurfaced in my thoughts, but I stepped over those experiences again, and I accepted the offer.
Every challenge I saw God lay before me, I tried again. I tried out for the worship team and signed up to teach a kids Bible school class at the church. I even flew out to meet with my first business client.
Does that mean I am now fail-proof at everything I try? No, not everything. I learned that I can keep a tune and hit the notes, but I need to develop my voice. I also learned that my body literally can’t endure being thousands of feet up in the air while strapped into my seat for more than half an hour. After flying back home from my meeting with my client, I reneged on my travel plans with my husband and he had to go without me. But I learned. I didn’t fail. I learned. Learning is a direction, not a destination.
I love what the Word of God says about failing! Proverbs 24:16 says, “though the righteous man falls seven times, he rises again…” I believe this scripture applies in more than one way. It applies for those who struggle with temptation to sin, of course. But it also applies to those who are overwhelmed with condemning thoughts, thoughts that tell us we will surely fail.
Here is a little something most people don’t know about me. When I was only three months old, I became very ill. When my parents couldn’t get me to recover on their own, they took me to the hospital, where the medical experts told them to take me home because I wouldn’t live another day. My parents took me home, but were praying for a miracle. The neighbor, who was an elderly lady and a God-fearing woman, came over to see me. After taking a look at me, seeing my lips and fingernails turning a shade of blue, she told my parents to prepare for the funeral.
Yet, here I am, blogging about the funeral that never happened. I titled this blog post “LIFE update” intentionally. I recovered miraculously, but was a very sickly child most of my childhood. The attacks didn’t stop there. After having my fifth baby, I had a difficult time recovering and the memories from my childhood came flooding in. Thoughts that told me my body was not made to endure these things and that I’m not even supposed to be alive; what was I thinking I can make it through this?! I know I’m not the only one who had to say to myself, “If I am still alive after all that, SURELY God has a purpose for me to be here!”
Three years later, I had to overcome those thoughts again after a miscarriage. But none of those situations change God’s intentions for my life. Psalm 34:22 says, “The Lord redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him.” That is the promise I have chosen to stand upon. That doesn’t mean we are going to get through life without resistance. The resistance will come, and the Lord will actually allow certain things to come our way, but only to show us that if we take refuge in Him, we will be redeemed. That means no matter how many times we fail or face hardships, if God is our redeemer, we will endure, we will overcome, and we will rise again.
My story is by far not one that could match some more intense hardships others face. I have stated this many times in previous blogs. But what is so amazing to me is that so often we, myself included, are tricked into believing those thoughts of condemnation by even the slightest challenge in our life. My purpose in this blog is not to rehash the challenges I’ve already shared or to draw attention to my struggles. By writing this blog, I say to myself and testify to you as the reader that even though I had to overcome some level of fear and thoughts that told me I don’t belong here, I am HERE! I am writing and declaring that, “The Lord redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him.”
