Our sweet Elijah boy is home sick with me today. He woke up coughing more than usual with a low grade fever and feeling dizzy and nauseous. He slept all morning on the couch. That is when I know he isn’t ok, when he hasn’t asked to watch tv or electronics!
About 1 pm he got up and had a small amount of food and then said he wasn’t sure he could sleep anymore and was it ok if he watched a cartoon. I hate seeing my kids sick and I am sure the stress of the last few weeks has just worn their bodies out.
I was supposed to be at the office by myself today, Dominic is out of town for meetings we had planned weeks ago. The reality is his business is our livelihood, so obviously at some point we had to get back into “real life.” Dominic is a do-er so working is good for him. I am finding it harder to focus and concentrate. It will come, I know that…but for today I was grateful for an unexpected sick day.
Last night, I don’t know why, but I went back to the private livestream group to watch a portion of my talk from the Never So Broken Conference in November.
I was in tears the entire time. Here is the deal, for those that don’t know or weren’t there….I wasn’t supposed to speak this year. But in early September, my dear friend Hannah had to step down from speaking and they asked me if I would take her place. The theme was “Walking in Thankfulness.”
I honestly didn’t have to even pray about it…I knew God was calling me to do this and in the matter of a very short amount of time, that weekend before Labor Day, God gave me the words that would ultimately become my conference talk.
I prayed about who in the Bible represented Thankfulness and immediately I thought of Job. Now I will be honest. I “knew” only the Sunday School version of Job’s story. I had not studied this book in the Bible. I am NOT a Biblical scholar. But I knew that is where I was supposed to land.
Here is this man, who faces incredible, unimaginable loss. So Much Loss. And his IMMEDIATE response was “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” He worshiped God!
I studied that book, saw how Job trusted God but also how he questioned Him. Job wasn’t happy about what happened to him, but he kept going back to God. And when God reveals His majesty to Job….all the things He is capable of, Job repents and at the end of the book we see how God restores so much to Job.
I said in my talk that I think we all need to land here, in that place of recognizing who God is, and that we are in desperate need of a Savior….and that is where true gratitude is formed.
Here is the thing….the Bible says that God is all knowing. So I believe He knows all things today and in the future. God knew this path we would be walking. On September 2, 2019 He gave me words, words that were genuine, born from years of seeing Him be faithful, words that I thought would minister to others. Words that God knew would minister to me just 4 months later.
As I read Job’s response of worship to those women on November 2nd I said something like this….”would that be your response in the midst of a terrible crisis? I don’t know that it would be mine.”
And yet….it was.
Not because I am so amazing or because there is something incredible about MY faith. NO! Hear me on this! God has proved faithful over and over and over again. Not me!
Almost 45 years around the sun and I have seen God take and use my deepest, ugliest, most shameful parts and use them for something good.
The reason that the words “I just want to see Jesus in this…” sprang forth from my mouth that first night is because God has been an integral part of my life for so long. He has guided me, loved me and carried me. And in His wisdom, even if I don’t fully understand, He prepared me for such a time as this.
I guess I just feel like it needs to be said that God is the one faithful here. It isn’t me. I have had a “hindsight faith” for the majority of my life….but in this, He poured out. I believe it is because He was preparing me when I didn’t realize it.
I was given the message on September 2nd. I wrote it (all 15,000 words of it) and then I spoke it over and over and over again as I practiced so that I wouldn’t be a total flop on stage. All preparation. Not for my moment on stage….no, for this.
For December 21.
I see myself in that video and know that the woman I once was is gone….but something new is springing forth. And God’s glory WILL be seen. I have no doubt.