Are You Sure?

Welcome! I thank you for loving us enough to come and check this out. I feel this is the strangest place to find myself. Maybe some of you feel the same. I didn't even know what a blog was until several months ago. Then when I felt God leading me to begin this blog, He used the body of Christ, His word and His Holy Spirit to encourage me. One night while talking with my good friend, Jenifer Johnson, about all the ways God had been so good to us, she said out of the blue, "Have you ever thought of starting a blog?" I was too afraid to answer her. As I continued to pray and give the Lord all of my excuses, He kept pointing me in this direction. I had many questions. Like so many other things in my life, I began my “paralysis of analysis”. While I know to the many of you who do this "blog thing", this may sound silly but this has been a “mini” journey in Trusting God once again when things don’t seem to make sense. So it began like this:

Lord, are You sure? I feel so afraid. My feelings are still so raw. What if someone responds with something that hurts my feelings? He reminded me how from the beginning the Holy Spirit has covered all the words that have been spoken to us. A “stranger” that had lost an infant reached out to us in the first few days after Brock’s death. He told us to look past peoples’ words and into their hearts of intentions. The Holy Spirit has really used that to protect us. This has allowed words to minister to us in tremendous ways. Even people who would say they felt inadequate in what they had to say.

Lord, are You sure? What if people misunderstand what I am trying to say as I feel like expressing my thoughts clearly sometimes seems so difficult? What if they think wrong of me? He brought to my mind the scripture from Proverbs 29:19 “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.”

Lord, are You sure? It has been seven months shouldn’t I have started earlier? How do I go back and tell the story? Don’t you like the way at first I said my feelings were still so raw and now I think it has been too long. Isn’t it funny the things we will come up with as excuses to not obey?!

Lord, are You sure? People might think that our grieving time is over. We have found ourselves in a huge new wave of grief. The change of seasons, school starting back, and the return of the autopsy have each taken their toll on all of us.

Lord, are You sure? Everyone has been so faithful to pray without this blog. He confirmed that the body of Christ is still praying for us and wants to know how specifically to pray. Recently in Sunday School, we shared a prayer request for our current ache. Several people stopped us to say how they so appreciated knowing how to pray for us now.

Lord, are You sure? I don’t even know how to set this up. Please send me someone to help. He answered with a sweet "new" friend Jamie Worley. She is a wonderful blogger and offered to help me with the layout, pictures and just understanding the entire setup lingo.

Lord, are You sure? I was beginning to recognize that I was running out of excuses as He had met each one with such faithfulness. Each Sunday our Pastor Bryant Wright has been preaching on God’s Chosen People and their Journey of Faith. I have learned so much. I often left the service feeling the Holy Spirit working in me. I was seeing myself like the Israelites continuing to argue and ask God questions when I felt Him saying “Be Quiet, Trust Me and Step out on faith.”

Lord, I am willing. One morning in my quiet time I was thanking the Lord specifically for sending Jamie. I told the Lord how I just wanted the blog to be all about Him and not about me. I want to gain nothing. I told Him I was willing if it were even just for the encouragement of one person in the Lord. You see until then I had not told Him I was willing. Then that afternoon, Jamie sent me a link to her blog where she had quoted something I said. Then one woman responded. She said she was encouraged. Wow!

This is just a glimpse of how the Lord has been so big and yet so intimate in my life in the past seven months. So, it is with much faith and pushed back fear that I am beginning this blog. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I have learned that is when I need to trust Him the most. I know God has His plans for this blog. I can't wait to be a part of what He is going to do. Thank you once again for joining us as we continue to live hard, love hard and run to Jesus on this journey.