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Search Results for: journey faith

The journey of faith, the surrender of prayer

November 10, 2017 by michelle 7 Comments

At the age of 64, my dad took a huge leap of faith and did something most wouldn’t consider at his age: he resigned from the church he pastored, and he and my mom moved across the country. My dad, the planner, mapped a six week road trip, a tour that wound them through the towns of their childhoods, national landmarks, museums, bucket list sights, points of interest, and thanks to my dad’s clever planning, they even trekked through the few states they’d never seen. By the time they reached my house – the last stop before their new state of residence – several things were certain: my parents could proudly say they’d been to all 50 states; they were eager to eat home cooked meals; and they were tired of living out of a suitcase. With so many miles and weeks and history between them and their old home, they were ready to venture the final 12 hours to their new home.

But tired as they were and ready as they were, there was something unsettling about arriving ‘home’ – there would be no more map. Long as it may have been, the journey across America had been a predictable journey. They awoke knowing where they were headed, they could reasonably estimate how long it would take, and the destination at the end of the day was the destination they had intended to reach. Every place had its unique delights and surprises, but the road trip itself had been a month and a half of anticipated outcomes.

New home, however, was a blank canvas. There was a house to find and new employment to secure, and neither of these things would be a one day road trip. Months after settling into their house, my dad was still sending out resumes, interviewing, and making follow up calls. He kept in forward motion, volunteering and meeting new people. Some days offered new possibilities, other days closed the door on hopeful prospects, but every day was a waiting day. He could choose to do many things, but the outcome was out of his hands.

Empty feelings find us when we’re waiting in the blank canvas spaces, when we can’t see the big picture and we’re unable to paint our desired outcome. Weaknesses are exposed and fear and insecurities surface. My dad wrestled the fear that his age was an obstacle, a seeming disadvantage he could do nothing about. He concluded he had two choices: He could trust God, or not. There was no in between. He could feel powerless against disadvantages or trust God’s power. He could consider waiting as wasted time, or trust it was training. He could hold on to fear, or hold on to the God of hope. Following the example of his namesake, David, my dad took everything to God in prayer – his age, his efforts, the waiting, the disappointment, and the questions. He trusted God could take all the ungood and make something good.

Wide open spaces of uncertainty are the journey places we’d avoid if given the choice, but these tough places are trust places – places where the complexity and simplicity of faith stretch for miles and we must choose our form of surrender: give up or let go. We assume weakness or resume in His strength. Doubt consumes us or we let worry go. We claim empty and quit or we gather the full confidence of hope and continue trusting the God of our faith’s beginning; continue trusting that He sees what we can’t see. Surrender prayers are the privilege of faith, not because they assure certain outcomes, but because in prayer we are reassured that God – though unseen – is certainly with us, now and forever.

My dad is now the prayer pastor of a Christian radio station, where his job is literally praying for every request a listener sends in and personally responding to each one. I imagine those responses are read with a sigh of relief, not because my dad understands all the mysteries of God, but because He understands the heaviness of desperate prayers, and the importance of grit kind of scriptures that strengthen weary hands in waiting. His age is no longer a disadvantage, but a gift of wisdom and tenderness. God is using the trials of faith for good. And my dad, the prayer pastor, is encouraging others, by faith, to keep going and keep holding hope in the God who can be trusted.

 

My friends, One More Truth is 3 years old! Want to see where the journey began? Right here.

In the Trembling, the Path is Revealed

September 10, 2019 by michelle 10 Comments

While getting ready for work last Wednesday, I came across a small note in one of my shoe boxes. I knew why the note was there, buried under a pair of shoes I rarely wear, and I remember the night I shoved it there, out of my sight. It was note from my daughter, written during a dark time in her life.

I knew healing, growth, and restoration bridged the two years between then and now, and I knew the daughter sleeping down the hall was safe, and her thoughts were safe, by God’s grace. And in my present reality, her joy and peace are visible and real, but reading the thoughts of her dark season again made the depths of me tremble. My body and mind knew the truth of ‘now’, but they also remembered the truth of ‘then’.

I stayed on the floor of my closet, rolling my neck and shoulders, breathing. I’ve studied trauma and secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, professional resiliency, and trauma healing. The remedy for triggers and stress, trauma and panic is simple – release the tension. In the complexity of crisis, when vigilance was necessary, ‘release the tension’ was a hard pill to swallow. With practice, I’ve come to appreciate the simple solution. Release has become a reflex, a medicine with quick results.

But in my calm body, I wondered why I hadn’t ripped that note to pieces and thrown it away, sent it off to a landfill far from my home so I wouldn’t have to remember. And I wondered why I was closing the shoe box with the note still in it, preserving it for another discovery.

I didn’t want to remember; but I didn’t want to forget.

Yes, I remembered the frantic months of recovery and finding help, but I couldn’t forget how God had led me to good people and proper care. Yes, I remembered praying exhausting prayers for healing and hope, but I couldn’t forget the peace that had guarded my mind and filled our home. I couldn’t forget how that peace had completely overwhelmed my understanding.

I remembered conversations no mama wants to have, but I couldn’t forget the relief of lies and shame and destructive beliefs being dug up by the roots during those conversations. I couldn’t forget how truth and grace had settled like seeds on the fresh, messy furrows of my daughter’s heart and mind. I couldn’t forget the moments and days and conversations to come when I saw evidence of those seeds flourishing, when I heard truth and health in my daughter’s tone. She could articulate what was once confusion. She could locate the truth in the noise, and she knew how to hold it – she believed it.

In remembering, I trembled in fear. In reconciling the experience with my present situation, I trembled in gratitude. We’d made it to the other side, and I couldn’t forget the wonder of a God who loved us, saw us, and carried us through.

In Psalms, slaves on their exodus come to the Red Sea. They see an impassable barrier of water; God sees a dry path underneath the sea. In the poetic retelling, the Red Sea trembles at the sight of God, and in the shaking, a path is revealed, a path no one knew was there. God had created a way through, long before it was needed – and in the trembling the path to freedom is brought to light.  

Man, I’ve trembled. I don’t love it, but I’ve learned not to run from it. Because in the shake up, the truth is revealed – about God, about me, about what He’s created deep within me. He’s always provided a way through, He’s always led me across impossible waters, safe and dry – and forever changed. I may remember the fear, but I won’t forget His faithfulness. I may remember my weakness, but I won’t forget the wonder of His power. I may remember the darkness, but I sure as heck haven’t forgotten the breaking of light. Freedom was on the other side of what seemed an impossible journey, but I had to walk through it to get there.

Later that day, I help a woman in the throes of crisis and trauma. She’s wondering if she has what it takes to walk the long road ahead, and I remember wondering the same thing many times before. I remember to encourage her one step further.

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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day and September is WSP month. If you need help, please ask. If you know hope, please extend. More resources are here.

And as always, if you know someone who needs One More Truth, please share.

 

What Grows in Waiting Spaces

July 12, 2019 by michelle 4 Comments

I met with a new friend yesterday. We’d scheduled to meet twice before, and both times we’d cancelled – because work, because travel, because life. January became July, and we finally made a date we didn’t have to break.

We were just two white gals with our laptops in Starbucks, still strangers, but deep in conversation, deeply connected by the conversation the Spirit of God had been having in both our hearts since January. And I realized while sitting there, in those six months of broken connection, God had been breaking common ground within us. There was purpose in His timing.

A few months back, my daughter and I strolled to the mailbox in the dark. I’d been waiting for the magazine that had printed my words, and for 7 days at least, I’d hustled to the mailbox in expectation, all the while, tamping my enthusiasm, just in case. On the way, I said I’d give up waiting if it wasn’t there.

It wasn’t there.

And on the way home, I said I’d keep waiting after all, because I’m wired to be a hopeful dreamer, even though sometimes, I wish I wasn’t. Carrying hope is tiring. Endurance exposes my weakness.

But that’s just it – I practice endurance. I finish my chores all the way before I cross them off. I get 5 hours of exercise a week, no questions asked. And when something comes out of me that isn’t a fruit of the Spirit, I give my heart a full examination, confront the problem, and dig it out. I take risks that could end in crushing disappointment – and sometimes they have. Endurance and waiting should be easier by now.

I took a risk last week and now I’m in the restless space between hope born and hope realized. I see it on the horizon sometimes, and I nod. I like seeing it there, expecting something ahead, but for now, I’m in the waiting space, the space of dependence, the space of patience. The space where I find out I’m not that patient.

These are the times when I when I chew gum like fiend, my jaw pounding harder than my heartbeat. These are the times when I criticize my body, holding the old lie that if I looked better, life would be better. These are the times the doubt voice is loudest and the accusations make more sense than the truth. These are the times when I wonder why I fiddle with hope at all, because courage takes guts and guts require hustle and sometimes I’d rather just wrap myself in the comfy blanket of apathy and drink my coffee without a single thought in my head, for heaven’s sake.

It’s a lie though. Who would I be without hope?

The journey of spiritual growth doesn’t have blankets, it has covers – of peace and strength, patience and ridiculous courage. Faith assures us what we see isn’t the whole picture and what we can’t see yet – the purpose and good of it all – will push through only if we do. Enduring hope is the journey; hope realized is hindsight. It’s when we see the gathering of many pieces in His perfect timing. It’s when we see ourselves at a table, connecting with someone of similar spirit, saying things we couldn’t have understood without the journey and the space to grow.

The spaces in which we wait aren’t times, but timing. I struggle to believe it in the waiting, but it always proves true in the end. God has the supernatural ability to finish everything He starts. We carry hope and He carries out His purpose – every time.

In all that you wait for and hope for, be encouraged, friend. And keep on.

 

Everyone needs truth. If One More Truth will encourage someone you know, feel free to share. Find weekly posts on Instagram: @onemoretruth

 

 

ARTICLES/PODCASTS

Trauma-informed Writing Transforms You and Your Writing

Transcendence Isn’t Achieved Through Constant Striving

Sensing My Way Toward God

Burnout, Crisis, and Faith

Flood My Heart

Settling In: Inviting God to Work

The Prayer of the Wholehearted

(in)courage

The Grace of Choice and Empty Space

Holding onto Hope When it’s Hard to Trust

The Lens of Wisdom

Complication and Contentment

the Better Mom

The Best Bible Study Ever Written

4 Indispensable Disciplines for Guiding Your Child in Faith

Ruminate Magazine

The Steady Climb and the Sweetness

Dear Adventurer, Your Greatest Journey Lies Ahead
Persephone’s Daughters

The Heart is Last to Heal

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The Humility of Grace and Child-like Faith

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Michelle

Hi, I'm Michelle. I write about adversity, movement, and responsive faith, all through a trauma-informed lens. I've written for a variety of publications, including the Women's Devotional Bible in The Message (2024). Contact me for speaking engagements, podcast episodes, or articles for your publication. If you're just here to read, enjoy. I'm glad you're here.

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