Tag Archives: Faithful Obedience

Faithful Obedience by Heather Lloyd

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When I think of my friend Heather Lloyd, a member of our church, the image that comes to my mind is always of a woman who is never idle, but always on the go. She is clothed with strength and determination is what she wears on her feet. I often times think that maybe she is the one woman in the world whose days are made of 48 hours! Our teenage daughter has spent two summer camps under her direction and she says, “Mom, I love her, she inspires me in many ways, especially on the way you can tell she loves the Lord.” So as you can imagine, I’m grateful to have Heather share with us in our series of Faithful Obedience.

Unanswered Prayer
By Heather Lloyd

A famous country song by Garth Brooks talks about unanswered prayer. It tells the story of a young man praying for a certain young woman and God, seemingly, doesn’t answer. Years later, this man and his new wife run into this “old flame” at a football game, who isn’t the “angel” he remembered. Brooks sings:

“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care… Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”

Sadly, this is often how we view prayer. When God is seemingly silent, or things look awry in the circumstances of life we hold to the idea that God will clearly reveal why He “didn’t answer.” And, we are certain that this revelation will be an “aha” moment, one where we see exactly why God waited to answer our prayer.

But, sometimes we want to think it is simply “unanswered prayer” when really God is saying a firm “no.” By all appearances, there is no reason insight and years later no “aha” moment has come. Sometimes the “no” doesn’t make sense — think Job. It is in these times that we are forced to sit in the hard place of “why Lord,?”

Paul talks about “unanswered prayer” in 2 Corinthians, “a thorn was given me in the flesh.” But he finishes with the reason, and it isn’t a glorious revelation it is simply sanctification; “so he wouldn’t be conceited.”

What does our faith do when God says “no?” It either grows or reveals deep-rooted sin like conceit. It is in these times that we either die to self or reveal our innate selfishness. It is in trials that we realize that the Master Conductor isn’t conducting an audience of one, but it is us performing for an audience of One. We aren’t the center, God IS.

We are not pawns in a game of chess but we are members of the orchestra, we are subjects of the King of Kings. God is directing and orchestrating and sanctifying. So these moments (moments that may last a lifetime) are revealing, but they are revealing of our own need for sanctification and may not necessarily reveal to us the plan that God is unfolding.

We live with relatively benign “no’s” compared to our predecessors. Think of the martyrs of the Church. They pleaded with God as they were tortured. The answer to these pleading saints was a firm “no.” Some gave in to their selfishness and renounced Christ and others lived faithfully to the end.

Blandina was a woman whom God gave a firm “no” to, a martyr of the faith that Eusebius speaks of. Once she realized the answer to her pleading for life was “no” she began to have a distinct fear that she would renounce Jesus when tortured. She asked her fellow saints to pray that she would not, she prayed to die well. Eusebius talks about Blandina facing more torture than any other martyr of the faith and yet through the entire ordeal she cried out “Jesus.” She clung to Jesus while she herself was void of any “aha” moment until she stood “Coram Deo” (before the face of God).

Our trials may seem small compared to a martyr, but we are no less at risk of renouncing Jesus through them. When we pray “thy will be done” we need to really understand what that means. God isn’t going to ignore our prayers. There really aren’t “unanswered prayers” as Garth Brooks sings. The character in that song actually received a “no” but this was a “no” with an easy reason clearly revealed — that isn’t always the case. The Lord will answer. The answer may be “yes.” The answer may be “wait” for a “yes.” And, the answer may be a firm “no.”

What we need to do when we plead with God is follow with “Lord keep me faithful should you answer no.” This is praying in God’s will. This is a prayer knowing that He sees what we need, that He sees what the Body of Christ needs, and He sees His kingdom unfolding from a perspective that we will never have. This is trusting Him, and this is faith.

We must never forget that God’s own son received a “no.” Jesus asked His Father to “take this cup from me” and the echo of that “no” is eternal. It is a “no” that started a Kingdom. The “no’s” we receive are growing that Kingdom.

Faithful Obedience by Kathryn Church

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What a blessing it is to have friends who inspire you in many ways, in my life one of those women is Kathryn Church. She is a woman that has a smile that says “Welcome” and a gift to make all things beautiful and fruitful. Kathryn’s faithfulness is a gift to our church, and we all are grateful for her.

Today she is our contributor to the series of Faithful Obedience and lovingly challenges to us pursue faithfulness in the ordinary. Please read and be blessed!

Obedience in the Ordinary
By Kathryn Church

The van was burgundy. A burgundy cloth bench seat in the back with the plastic rectangle storage units. From the recesses of the van, I could see the back of my grandmother in the passenger seat, her arm on the arm rest wearing a rain coat, because that’s what you wear most of the year in Portland. Some twenty years later, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of our car wearing a rain coat, and our kids are in the back. It was the realization that here I was, wearing a similar rain coat, that made me suddenly remember all this. Not a memory that had occurred on some momentous occasion, just the ordinary. My grandparents had a van that allowed them to cart grandchildren in it. They drove over to Idaho for grandparent days at school, special visits, and simply to see us. As a kid I thought they were wealthy grandparents because of how they poured generosity on us with meals out, soda at dinner, and museum trips. They did have a lot of wealth in Christ. They did what God had put before them with all that they had.

When God commands us to obey, He does so over and over again with the image of walking in obedience.

“You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” Deut 5:33 NKJV

Day in and day out, every step needs to be one in obedience. If you know Becky and are reading her blog, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Bible Reading Challenge. We’re currently in year three, and if there was a “walking in obedience 101 class,” it would start with Read Your Bible. If we are going to walk in obedience, we need to be fed daily with righteousness. And it is this level of saturation in God’s Word that prepares us for obedience in the small moments.

This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.” 2 John 1 :6 NKJV

Every step — obedience or disobedience? What is love? Obedience. And it is a question you can ask at any time and in every situation. Am I obeying Christ in this? A lot of this obedience seems too mundane, too unimportant to talk about or pray about.

We have chickens on our property which entails mess and delicious eggs. On an especially busy day, (we own a real estate brokerage and property management company in town), I had gathered eggs with no basket or carton, simply in my hands, and was going through the garage. One naturally escaped and gracefully broke on the floor. The normal thought is “this is not what I need right now,” but that is absolutely false. That is exactly what I needed right then. And I knew it. We obey by doing what God puts in front of us. And on that particular day, it was a broken egg to clean up instead of moving on to the next, “more important” thing. We need a perspective shift.

Are you running late for school and get stuck behind the Subaru going 25? What does it look like to walk in obedience? Are you desperately trying to get ready for company at your house when a neighbor drops by to chat? Are you trying to get dinner in the oven and a child needs discipline? Who put this in front of you? Our ideas about the way and the order we need to get things done are frequently not the way God plans for us to get them done. And taking it one step further, G.K. Chesterton says, “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” Obedience teaches us to see the adventure being had or the lesson being learned, however mundane or traumatic it might be.

Our 1920s farmhouse runs on a well, one that in the last year and a half has been having production shortages. While inconvenient, we’ve generally managed to space out dishwasher runs with showers and laundry. The well, however, was no match against the stomach bug our family ran into last spring. Sick kids, sick husband, and then, no water. It really felt like we were approaching game time. (That image was probably helped by the fact that I could only find my husband’s basketball shorts to throw on as I felt myself going down. The look was completed by a stretchy headband.) But here we were with a perfectly ordinary test from God. And yet, with something daily like this we have an opportunity for walking in obedience or disobedience. Understanding that we should approach whatever God puts in our path with joyful obedience does not mean you won’t get sick, but it does mean you can gain wisdom and potentially see the humor while going through it. And knowing that means you can walk through the trial without necessarily getting knocked off your feet in the process.

God is teaching us and growing us in Him. He decides when the tests come but He also provides the answers. Nancy Wilson has said it’s an open book test.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” Ps 119:105 NKJV

God’s Word provides everything we need to walk in that obedience. When it gets steep or the conditions are deep levels of snow with no visibility, His Word still can show you the step right in front of you. We know that if we want to be proficient in any area (piano, weightlifting, or sales) we have to start with practice and simply put in the time. When we are commanded to walk in obedience then we should start practicing in the small things! Start with the thing right in front of you. When you cannot find the sock in the laundry pile, here’s an opportunity for obedience! The habit will be to automatically turn to Christ in obedience when disruption or blessing hits no matter what the size. When worries hit, it turns out that the best way to combat them is constant practice in obedience.

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” Gal 6:9 NKJV

God has a wonderful promise attached with obedience that we may live long in the land that He has given us! How do we start? By doing the dishes in front of us. By leaving a legacy for our grandchildren. By praying over the small daily things. And by reading His Word.

Faithful Obedience by Kate Nieuwsma

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We count it a blessing to see, in the church where God has planted our family, how many saints walk faithfully and joyfully through very hard things. Their faithfulness, endurance joy, and faith encourage us to press on looking up to Jesus, knowing that He is near us.

Kate has been such a faithful mom through a long trial, and her testimony of God’s faithfulness sustaining her family is a gift to the church. I trust that you will be encouraged to read this.

The Great Gift (of Small Joys)
By Kate Nieuwsma

“When my anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy.” Psalm 94:19

“But how can they survive?” I asked myself. A few years ago, three faithful women in my community lost their babies within a few weeks of one another, all in truly tragic circumstances. What I saw unfolding for them was my deepest nightmare. The death of one of my children is something that – if I let it – will keep me up at night in a cold sweat. (Pretty sure it will do that to most parents!) Part of why it scared me so much is that I had seen this trial unfold before, and I thought I knew what came afterwards: despair, chaos, spiritual death. I cringed at the loss of faith I thought was fated to follow on the heels of such grief.

But instead? I was given one of the greatest spiritual gifts I have ever received. Every single one of those women showed bone-deep grief. But they also showed us joy. In the months that followed their loss, they told us the sharp-edged sorrow, but they wrapped it with the joy of God’s provision. They showed us laughter with their families. They showed us dignity in loss. They spared us the gritty, public play-by-play of grief lauded in our culture as being the only “authentic” reaction, knowing that we didn’t have the grace to bear that, and they pointed us to Christ instead. When they could have – without guilt – buried us in the heaviness of legitimate grief, they chose instead to hand us joy. Not pretendy joy. Not false laughter that doesn’t admit the difficulty. But that deep, sometimes weeping joy that says “This is a dark night, but Christ is the light.” We saw them cling to Christ, and then we saw them stand strong in joy.

I held onto this gift of joy in trials, but I had no idea how much I would need it. About 8 months ago, my then-2-year-old daughter was suddenly diagnosed with an acute kidney condition. We thought at first it was temporary, but it has become clear over the last few months that this is likely to be a constant throughout her childhood, and perhaps her entire life. Our last few months have been full of pain and pain management, hospital stays, numerous infections, pancreatitis, pneumonia, thousands of blood tests, IV sticks, PICC lines and bandaids and insomnia and hard hospital beds and difficult visions of the future. There was a very real danger of losing her several times in this journey so far, and the possibility for permanent disability or a shortened life is always present.

I remember standing by her hospital bed a few months into her journey after a difficult night and an even more difficult morning blood draw. Things were hard, and the temptation to be weary and weepy and ask for others to join with me in that tired, frustrated pain was very real.  But then I looked up and saw her sitting there with a case of simply legendary bedhead, double-fisting some juice and water, and giving me a classic look of hilarious, near-drunken morning bleariness. There was nothing to do but laugh out loud and take a picture (and show it to her – she laughed too!). That morning, I remembered the glory of those faithful women handing out a glimpse of the joy that comes in sorrow, and I decided to pass that along in a tiny way. I posted that picture of my little one with the very real and cleansing laughter that came with it rather than the bid for sympathy I desperately wanted to post. It was a simple act of finding joy in the midst of difficulty, a preschool level attempt at mimicking the great acts of faith that I had seen, but I can’t tell you how many people have thanked me for that funny little picture and others like it. There is something foundationally comforting about small joys in the midst of a trial. They tell those around us that we will be ok, and it also tells them that they will be too. It tells them that when their turn for trouble comes along (and we all know that it will), that they will make it through. That Christ will be with us all even when things are hard. That in the darkest cave of trials there is still the light of God, the relief of holy laughter. That when pain is real, heaven is more so.

Joy reminds us that Christ will make it right.

Joy is both submission and rebellion, a sword and trowel. It faithfully plants seeds in the midst of a snowstorm, and it guards the soul like a watchdog. It shakes the fist at the type of “rawness” that insists that glory is not possible in the midst of difficulty. That your truest feelings are only the ones that happen when self-control is lost.

And the best part about joy? When you go in search of it in order to pass it on, seeking the beautiful gems of laughter and provision and comfort in the dark cave you’ve been thrown into, you always find far more than you’ve been looking for. Joy is like the stable in C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Last Battle’: far larger on the inside than it is on the outside. When you crack open that door in order to battle the darkness, you find that you’ve actually stumbled on a place of feasting. You find that Christ has “set a table in the presence of your enemies” (especially those enemies of the soul – bitterness, ingratitude, fear, cowardice). Even small joy opens the door to great victory.

This race of faith that God has called my daughter and the rest of our family to may be a long one. We honestly don’t know how far this road will take us or what it will contain. But we have seen the faithful runners ahead of us in this race of faith, and we have seen their faithful obedience of joy. Because of them, we know that we will be ok. We know that Christ is here, because they have shown us His joy. Make us like them, Lord!

Light this darkness with the flame of Your joy.

Faithful Obedience by Lauren McMurray

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Lauren and I have gotten to know each other through our involvement in the Bible Reading Challenge. And every time she writes or comments, I pay attention because I know she will have something good for us to hear.

It is a blessing to have women in your life whose words build up those who hear them!

Thank you, Lauren for your contribution to this series on Faithful a Obedience.

I became a Christian when I was 18, my freshman year of college. I didn’t meet my husband until I was 26. And as a part of a large church community, I had lots of opportunities to fellowship through giving my time. Serving my roommates, family, fellow church members, and my coworkers was a joy. When I got married it was hard for me to transition away from looking outward to looking inward as a helper for my husband. Learning how to serve him as a wife and as a friend, and how to be a part of his family with their different-from-mine expectations. My outside-the-home time was crunched keeping a large house without roommates help. I was so busy at home that I felt like I was giving nothing. The feeling compounded when I became a mother two and half years later—it became hard to even make meals for people. I really wanted to serve His people, and it felt somehow selfish to just serve my little family.

Facing my duty, releasing my desire.

Eventually I was blessed to realize—through faithful friends’ podcast—that God gives us desires in order that we might have something to give back to him.

Desires to sacrifice??

I looked at my past, present, future and saw that the very duties that had seemed selfish were the reason I had something more to sacrifice. I was able to faithfully give by “not doing”. I had learned “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” but I finally saw when I chose my duties by not doing, that was still pleasing to the Lord.

Practically I can pray for needs to be filled. I can buy Papa Murphy’s when I don’t have time deliver a home-made meal. I can love my little people by leaning in to my husband and children’s hobbies. Praying for friends, and church family is something I can do while overseeing my little realm. Praying, calling, emailing, or writing a card are all kind ways to serve, and offer up your desire to do more by doing what you can before the Great Comforter, the Great Physician.

Interests, desires, wants are all opportunities to have an open hand before the Lord and cheerfully assume our duties and hold desires with an open hand before the Lord.

Faithful Obedience by Maddie Williams

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Maddie is a new friend to me. In the last months I came to know her better and all I have for her is respect and a deep love. She is a kind and joyous woman with a compassionate heart that never gets tired of reaching out to serve and love others, -her acts of kindness have touched our lives, and even my grandson gets to be snuggled in a precious baby blanket she knitted for him!

I am so grateful to have her share today with us about her difficult journey with infertility and our faithful God who always walks with us.

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God’s Faithfulness in the Wilderness of Infertility
by Maddie Williams

“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 8: 2-3

This verse came to mind when Becky asked me to write something about faithful obedience and how it has affected me. God required faithful obedience from the Israelites as they wandered in the desert, and whether they were faithfully obedient to God had massive consequences. Those who obeyed (Joshua and Caleb) were able to enter the promised land, but those who disobeyed were left in the wilderness, never to enter the land flowing with milk and honey.

Infertility has been the greatest test of my obedience thus far in life, and years in, I still have so much to learn about how I can faithfully obey God in this “wilderness.” God has not given us babies yet because He loves us too much to give them to us right now, and one of the testaments of that love is what He has taught me in this time of waiting. God has taught me that faithful obedience reaps great blessings.

You see, I live in a town of many babies. I mean, many, many babies. Many friends’ babies, many nieces and nephews, many church babies. Not long into dealing with infertility the temptation became great to see each of those babies as reminders of what I didn’t have. Little fingers whispered that God had blessed someone else, but not me. Little giggles hinted that God loved someone else, but not me. Little toes suggested that lucky is she, but woe is me. Several times I gave in to those whispers of sin, using the fact that others had what I did not have as an excuse to wallow in my own sadness and self-pity. The more I wallowed, the harder infertility got, the darker my wilderness grew. The more I envied others with their sweet little babies, the sadder my life became.

God placed me in a wilderness, but He also placed the nourishment I needed to make it to the promised land right in front of me. When the Israelites were in the wilderness God fed them with manna. It was exactly what they needed to sustain and nourish them. When God gives us trials of our own, He also provides us with manna-like mercies to sustain and nourish us through our wildernesses. Ironically, I found that my “manna” was spending time with my nieces, nephews, and friends’ babies. But just like the Israelites, I was tempted to grumble about my manna and resent it. My manna came with a catch. In order to be nourished by it, I had to faithfully obey God and thank Him for it before I could reap the harvest. It was only when I obediently thanked God for blessing others and not me with the gift of children that I was able to feast off that “manna.” It was only when I rid myself of envy and bitterness that I was able to reap the blessing that God had placed right in front of my blind eyes. Not only did the pain of infertility practically vanish, but I also found what is now the greatest joy in my life.

I had to bless God for the blessings of others. And the coolest thing? God taught me to bless Him for the blessings of others, especially the blessings that I myself was still waiting on. Once I submitted in obedience to Him, my wilderness faded away. Now it is one of my greatest joys when my friends have babies. Ironically, I feel like I have the easiest time glorifying God for those gifts. I feel like I should be the one giving the MOST glory to God when I see friends receive what I don’t have. For I know, in a unique way that only some know, just how precious and glorious and undeserved those blessings are. I know firsthand that those blessings aren’t an accident. They’re not a lucky coincidence. They’re not good timing. They’re not fertility treatments. Instead, they are God’s power. They are God’s glory. They are God’s magic. And I have a backstage pass to the magic show. I should be the one giving Him the most praise for those gifts. Through infertility, God has made it easy for me to see just how glorious those many, many babies are.

When I started to respond to these gifts with obedience, God dramatically changed my heart. Now when I see the many babies surrounding me, I no longer see what God has withheld from me. Instead I see what God can do, for it’s no harder for God to give them babies than to give me babies. Now when I have my nieces and nephews over for a date, I no longer see what I’m missing. Instead I see little shoes scattered across my entryway, a sight that brings me so much joy. Now when I get to babysit for my friends, I no longer feel empty afterwards. Instead, my heart is filled to the brim with all the snuggles I just stole. Little did I know that when I started faithfully obeying God, He would bless that obedience hundredfold. When I obediently died to sin, God took that death and resurrected it. He turned the very thing that once caused hopelessness into what is now my greatest source of hope and joy. He turned what was once a wilderness into a land flowing with milk and honey. Praise Him for the babies, the little hands and big giggles, the baby showers, and the snuggles that He has fed me with. They are my greatest joys every day. They are my manna that fills up my cup to overflowing. They are living and breathing reminders to taste and see that the Lord is so very good. As I have learned to faithfully obey God and bless Him for the blessings of others, my wilderness has faded and my emptiness has been filled with joy. God greatly blessed my little mustard seed of obedience.

When we faithfully obey God, we see God’s greatest blessings. If we faithfully follow God even when we are weak, God will always bless our obedience. Our death to sin will be resurrected and raised to new life. And that shouldn’t surprise us because that’s the way God’s world works. Out of defeat, God conquered the powers of death and hell. Out of pain, God healed the greatest of all wounds. Out of despair, God brought the greatest joy. And out of death, God gives us eternal life.

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Faithful Obedience by Christiana Hale

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Christiana lives up to her name and I am grateful for that. We need more Christianas in this world!

Read and be encouraged to be faithful, to submit faithfully to the will of the Lord in your life. He is good. You can trust Him with all your life too.

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Receive, and Be Glad
By Christiana Hale

“Be comforted, small one, in your smallness. He lays no merit on you. Receive and be glad” (C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, PAGE).

We all dream. Daydreams and weird dreams. Dreams that are really aspirations. We hope and we plan to make those dreams a reality. I still remember, even now, the dreams I had when I was small. A six-year-old in pigtails who decided to become a circus performer (it was a short-lived dream though, destined to give way to the cowgirl phase). I still remember where I was when I decided to become a missionary to Africa or perhaps Indonesia. The dry yellow grass rattled and rustled around my knees, the smell of the hot dirt baking in the August sun, and the sheer, overwhelming weight of conviction that came to rest on my eleven-year-old heart. I was going to save souls. Then I was an awkward teenager, holing myself up in my room for hours typing away at my computer. One novel, then two flew from my fingertips, fueled by oceans of tea and sustained by the patience of my family as I disappeared into worlds of my own making. I would save souls through words printed in ink. Then I’m a shy Freshman college student, terrified and uncertain, dreaming only of straight A’s and maybe making new friends along the way. Mostly just dreaming of making it through another week without giving up and going home. Late twenties, two degrees later, and the dreams are grander again. Publish books, study at Oxford, become a great college professor, make a difference, make a name for myself – but secretly, the despair at not having a husband and children yet wrapped its bony fingers around my soul. Diversion tactics came into play. Nothing to see here. Move along please. Look at these other big, important things I’m working on. I’m happy you see. Dreams are coming true. I don’t really want…

We lie to ourselves all of the time.

I am thirty now. I did not look forward to turning thirty. Because I had finally stopped lying to myself and accepted fully that I had (and have) deep desires that are yet unfulfilled. Now what? What must I do with these?

The answer came with struggle, with prayer and tears and long walks in the cold chill months of north Idaho winters. It came when the ground was hard and brittle, when the bare tree branches scraped against the stars.

Plant them.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24, NKJV).

We plant dreams. Place them in the ground in faith. Let them fall and slide from your fingertips. You will let them go in any case. You can give them up in faith or they can be pried from your stubborn hands, fingers cracking in the effort to retain some semblance of control. Plant your dreams and give them to the One who can give the increase. The One who sends the showers and the springs. The One who sends blossoms.

But some dreams never bloom.

Some seeds go into the ground, never to be seen again. What about those?

Receive, and be glad.

Receive. And be glad.

What do we have that we have not received? The dreams and the planting. The repentance and forgiveness. The small joys and the large victories. The heights and the depths. Our Lord gives us gifts like these and calls us to plant and plant again. And the harvest is not always what we expect.

My Lord has broken my fingers. My grasping and my striving to keep my dreams in clenched fists has been destroyed in His grace. Pried open, laid bare, I am not ashamed to confess that vanity and pride were my close companions for many years. But my Lord is a Master Gardener and He has broken up hardened soil, pruned and ploughed, watered and re-sown. When I let Him sow in me, I find that my dreams have become more modest and held with open hands.

A husband. Family. Children. An inheritance in the Lord. Good things He hasn’t given me yet. Deeply sown desires, but laid open to the rays of the sun, simply waiting for the Lord to shed His grace upon them. To make them fruitful.

Have gratitude. Receive. And be glad.

I am small. And my dreams are small. God stitches us together by means of small things – small mercies, small joys, small fruitfulness. He uses the small, foolish things of this world to put to shame the proud. When I think back on my life, complete with my many foolish dreams and petty weaknesses, I see a rich tapestry of God’s goodness and faithfulness. My childhood was stitched with crimson and shot through with starlight. My mother reading Narnia stories to me and my sister before bed. Creeping out of bed in the middle of the night to crouch by my open window and watch the moonlight on the river and listen to the howling of the coyotes echo against the mountains. My favorite corner of the old library. I can still picture where the faded green biographies of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone used to sit, the ones I’d check out over and over again.

Blankets on a trampoline on a warm summer night, stargazing with friends and talking about the future and the past and the promises of God. A field of flowers. A friend with babies. Sunset-chasing, meteor-shower-watching. Bittersweet farewells, heartbreakingly happy reunions. Death and new life and aching joints and late-night talks with roommates who confront your sin. Confession and repentance. Kind eyes and loud laughs. Weariness and good sleep and good coffee. Steam curling off a bowl of soup on a crisp autumn day. Days when everything goes right. Days when everything goes dreadfully wrong. Heartbreak and healing and heartbreak again.

“Be comforted, small one, in your smallness.”

I am not where I dreamed that I would be. And I know I am not the only one. His ways are not our ways. Praise the Lord! I would not have written my story this way. It is infinitely better than I would have planned. Even the trials that He has crafted for me. Because all of it, the heights and depths, are shaping me into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. My life is not a series of dreams coming true – it is the process of becoming true. I am being re-made into a true woman, the one that He wants me to be. With every chip of the chisel, every spade piercing earth, I am being fashioned.

How?

Accepting all things with gratitude as coming from the hand of a loving Father.

Planting dreams in hope, letting them fall to the ground and praying for a harvest.

Submitting to His will in joyful obedience in the small things. Sacrificing dreams. For I am small and this is good.

Laughing through the smallness and the joys and the sorrows and the trials. This is His will for me: gratitude and joy, obedience and fruitfulness.

I don’t have children. But I have ninety students that sit under my guidance. I have dear friend who (for some reason) ask for my advice. I have little sisters and older sisters beyond number. I have written a book. I am writing more. I’ve made meals beyond number and picked flowers for the sick and weary. I’ve been fruitful. He has made me fruitful. I’ve received and so I give. All of this is because it is He who works in me. He plants and waters and sows and weeds and tends.

So receive. And be glad.

For “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

*****