Driving Miss Nesha

Wow, what a ride it's been. In just one month, God has continued to bless me with opportunities to serve him. Why do I sound so amazed? Why do I put God in a box as if I am the one who determines how he will move in my life? But yet, I remain amazed. I remain completely dumbfounded that he chooses to work through me. Maybe it's because I still don't feel worthy to be used by him. Doesn't he know how screwed up I am? Doesn't he know that I have major issues I need to work through? Doesn't he know that I am not the smartest person in this field? Doesn't he know that I think I am not ready to do something so big? Doesn't he know that I would rather stay home and hide? Doesn't he know that I just want to be left alone?

Of course he knows all these things about me. He continues to draw me out, to call me out, and to challenge me that if I truly want to be his follower that I must TRUST him. It's one thing to say you trust God, it's a whole other thing to see that trust play out in real life. It hasn't been easy, but I am choosing to trust that his plans for my life are better than my own. I am learning 18 years later after becoming a Christian (can you tell how stubborn I am?), that there is no better life than a life purposed for HIM. There is no true happiness in a life apart from serving and walking with him.

I have decided that as long as I let him stay in the driver seat that I don't have to worry about crashing. Sooner or later, I will get it through my thick headed skull that as long as I am driving, I will wreck. While I am still learning what it means to be his follower, I'll call "shotgun" and let him drive and enjoy the ride. I will enjoy hearing the fatherly, sweet tone in his voice saying to me, "let me drive you Miss Nesha. Buckle up, it's going to be one heck of a ride."

There's more to life than laundry

If you were to ask me 6 months ago what I would be up to now, my answer would not have been "I am going to start a consulting business and be a CEO." In fact, if you were to have suggested that would have been in my near future, I would have laughed at you and responded "thats a dream for dreamers, I am a realist, now it's time to get back to the laundry."

However, 6 months ago, the discussion of considering pursuing what I viewed as "someone else's dream" began to evolve from the encouragement of several great friends and my pastor. Back in September, I was asked by my pastor if I was ready to "come out of retirement" and consider volunteering in a role to help my church raise a substanial amount of money for a new home. I didn't jump up gleefully and say yes right away. I knew the time involved in a commitment like that, so I forced myself to take the time to pray about my decision. Yes, I said I forced myself to pray about it. Can you see the beginning of a lesson God is about to teach me in control here?

I remember during that week of prayer that I told God that he was crazy. I complained about him calling me to do something that I wasn't equipped for. I demanded that he call me to do something that made sense. Something that I was certain I could accomplish and not fail at.

It was during that week of prayer and study that I literally stumbled upon 1 Chronicles. I STUMBLED...and God's word smacked me right upside the head with 1 Chronicles 28:20... “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. He will see to it that all the work related to the Temple of the Lord is finished correctly."

I finally shut up. I decided that God must be right and even though I still might think he is crazy. For the first time in my life, I decided to stop complaining, serve HIM, and wait to see if I could trust him. I was not prepared for the beauty of his blessings.

I worked as hard as I possibly could with our church staff on fast tracking a capital campaign effort. In the secular world, that is just plain craziness. I would like to say that I 100% faithfully trusted God in this, but I didn't. I was expecting to feel defeated, but instead God worked on the hearts of his people through the teaching and leadership of Pastor Matt Brown, and on November 15 our church received $4 million in pledges and over $1 million in cash gifts.

God floored me. His mercy and blessings are abundant and around us everyday, but I am so blind to them. I am clouded by the ignorance of my perception of the one who created me. I tearfully asked God to forgive me for doubting his power. There is no other explanation for how we raised that money other than that it was God. I didn't raise that money. I was merely a tool God used to aid in the process, HE did it. I didn't see it coming, but God was using this blessing and experience in trusting HIM to lead me down yet another CRAZY path.

Very quickly, he would be teaching me that there was more to life than laundry.

My friends Fear and Control

So I fell a bit off track with trying to keep up with a new blog. I am already 2 months into the new year and haven't blogged yet. That's ironic given the fact that one of my resolutions was to blog more consistently this year!

Where to begin? Well hopefully you will grant me some grace. It's after midnight and I have taken two benadryls since I am trying to fight off a cold caused by allergies. Hopefully what I write and what is on my heart will make sense.

I have been mulling over in my mind the top 5 things I want to work on/accomplish this year:

1. Follow Christ's plans for me without fear or reservation and trust that he will protect me

2. Be a better wife to Micah

3. Be a better mother to my 3 awesome children

4. Be a better woman, sister, and friend

5. Spend more time in prayer about how to accomplish 1 through 4

Seems simple enough right? Well not for me. You see if you know anything about me, you know I struggle tremendously with fear. I have shared before that my fear is not of every day things like a fear of public speaking for instance. My fear is deep rooted in the uncontrollable aspects of life. My fear is a fear that has crippled me from taking risks and ultimately missing out on the beauty of seeing God move.

Years ago, my friend Fear introduced me to a friend named Control. Together, Fear, Control and myself, make for one dynamic team. We have been tightly knitted together since I was about 5 years old. You see when I was 5, I was sexually violated by my uncle. Up until that point I was free to laugh, sing, run and play with friends. After that moment, Fear and Control promised to protect me. Together we built a great fortress that hardly anyone could break through. We made great strides and accomplished many great things as I grew up. Control was always the leader of our group, and she made decisions about what we could and could not do. Afterall, she was in charge and she knew what was best to protect all three of us.

Over the years of my childhood and on through adulthood, we remained great friends. We destroyed dreams together because the cost was never worth the risk. We didn't let "others" in our group without a thorough evaluation of how the rest of us would benefit. Control eventually became so strong that she started to try and dictate how my life would run. She was especially angry when I told her about my new best friend that I had just met. I told her his amazing story about how he had died for me and how I had decided to give up my life to follow him. You can imagine how upset Control became.

Although I had this new amazing best friend in my life, I still kept in touch with Fear and Control on a daily basis. I often would ask my new best friend for advice on how to deal with my old friends, and his answer was always the same..."hand them over to me." But how could I? They were there from the beginning. We had been through so much together that I worried how I could manage my life without them. But my best friends response was always the same..."hand them over to me." I still have not done that yet.

My new best friend has been amazing. He has been the most loyal friend I have ever known. He has never forgotten about me and is never too busy to chat with me. He has spoken truth into my life in a way that Fear and Control never did. I want to tell Fear and Control that our friendship is over, but it's so hard to let them go. My new best friend understands this and loves me anyways. He even introduced me to another friend who is with me wherever I go. I have never seen this friend with my eyes, but I feel his presence quite often. The other awesome thing about my new best friend is that he introduced me to his Dad. His Dad is amazing and loves me like his own daughter. Who could ask for more than that in a relationship?

So here I sit. In another new year, promising myself that I will create a new me. I know that I can't accomplish that without ending my friendship with Fear and Control. I know that on some level I will always be friends with them and we will keep in touch for time to time, but I have to build a healthy boundary with them because of the wounds they have caused. My new best friend is patient though. He loves me and wants what is best for me. When I "get into it" with Fear and Control, he always steps in to bring light into the situation and reveals to me the right, solution. Fear and Control don't care for him very much. In fact they get extremely angry when challenged by him.

Oddly enough, even though I haven't completely given up my friendship with Fear and Control, my best friend is still right beside me. I don't understand his loyalty and undying love for me, and I don't try too anymore. I am just thankful that he is still by side and waiting patiently for me to break up with Fear and Control.

Processing and Digesting

I have realized something about myself. I am either in a state of over processing and digesting information to the point of sheer confusion, or I don't spend enough time processing through how something I say or do will effect someone else. There has to be a happy medium and I am struggling to find that place.

Most often I am walking the line of sheer confusion. That state of confusion usually leads me down a negative path towards believing in lies. It blocks me and cripples me from hearing the Holy Spirit speak truth to me. I begin to allow the enemy a foothold in my life and I start to believe his voice of destruction rather than God's voice of reason.

Why?

It can't just be blamed on "being human." I have no credentials to back this up, but I think that as Christians we are just as susceptible to harassment as any other person that the enemy holds down from living in a relationship with the God who created us. When I begin to over process, over digest, over analyze, I allow spiritual darkness to consume my thoughts. I begin to listen to lies that the world's way might just be "easier" than God's way.

I also think I have to stop trying to "figure God out." If I am going to have faith at all and call myself a Christian, I have to faith IN it all. Faith in the plans he has for me, even when the world around me doesn't make sense. I have to have faith that God's ways are not my ways for a reason that is better than any I can think of.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine." Isaiah 55:8

Missing Dad on Halloween

It's Halloween. Why on a simple childlike "holiday" like Halloween am I struck with this heaviness in my heart of having lost you. Why do emotions and memories flood back into my mind all over again like the day you died. Why can't I remember you fondly instead of it hurting so much inside. Why can't I hold on tight to the reality that my true heavenly father grieves with me, and rest in knowing that one day I will see you again. I heard the holy spirit speak through a friend today...she said "we were never meant to experience death." We were designed to have everlasting life. Death is not something that God had planned for us to experience.

It's only through the fall of man that we now must experience and live in a painful world, so that we can truly rejoice when we are reunited with our God once again.

I am blessed that I have friends who have lost love ones, but yet sharing with them brings up memories and feelings that are so painful to process through. I can only explain it as a sharp piercing of my soul. Selfishly I wonder if I would really trade having you back here over the gift of salvation that you received. Sometimes I feel like just one day with you would be worth it but then I realize how crazy and selfish that sounds.

I want to be special to someone like a daughter is to a father. That is a feeling that is unique from being special to my husband, family or friends. I don't have that "specialness" anymore and I feel stripped of that. I know that I am special to my Lord, but sometimes the enemy distracts me by making me doubt that reality. Sometimes I am weak and I allow him to win.

People often tell me that God has you experience lessons in life to help others when it is their time to deal with it...but what if I don't want to bear the burden of seeing someone else hurt? What if helping other people brings up memories that are painful instead of happy? How am I supposed to deal with that? Where is that one person that I can sit and talk to about my dad and his story that will never get tired of hearing me share?

I love you Dad. I miss you A LOT. I miss watching you play with my kids. I miss hearing your voice on the phone. I miss asking you for advice. I miss our time together as short as it was. I miss you on this silly day called Halloween and how for another year you will not be here to see my kids in their costumes. I miss that I won't get to tell you to stop scaring teenagers as they come to my door. I remember you on days like this. I remember you with a smile although my heart is heavy with a sadness that I must learn to hand over to God.

Obey, Trust, and Serve

These have become the theme words for my life. God has brought me to a place in my life to obey, trust and serve HIM. He has brought me down a path in the last 10 years that has been perfectly orchestrated for his use. In the past few weeks I have literally become a spectator in my own life. God has been at work and has been revealing plans that he has for me and my purpose in building his kingdom. I have watched him move in my life and while that is thrilling, I still struggle with the fear of trusting him. What is wrong with me?

I don't think that my plans for myself are any better, I just question why he chooses me. Why does he choose to call me to a place of obedience to accomplish things that seem impossible? I know he has a perfect plan for me and I am truly thrilled to see where he takes me. Now I just need to stop questioning his intentions and trust that his plan will always be for good, and to bring HIM glory.

So I had the whole summer to spend on blog entries, and I didn't find the time to write one! I was obviously busy with three little kids and doing my best to keep them occupied. Well summer has flown by and now I am ready for Fall!

For the first time I feel at rest. I am at peace with the place that Christ has brought me to. It's been a long 2 years on my new venture of staying home, and there have been a lot of rough life lessons to learn. I have embraced those challenging lessons and I have worked hard at listening to what Jesus has been trying to teach me. I now understand why he allows us to experience hurts, disappointments, frustrations, and trials. For me it's been to show me that only HE can fix things. Only HE can save people. And in order for me to grow in my walk with him, there are things I must leave behind if I am going to truly be his follower.

I finally have experienced the freedom that a relationship with Christ brings. That freedom has always been offered to me, I am just new at accepting it. I am ready for the challenges that lie ahead, and I am excited to see what my Lord will teach me.

Here we go...

I am finally up and running on my new blog. If you were following me on my wordpress blog, I moved here only because I am a graphic geek and like things to look pretty! If I could afford to have someone design a site for me I would.

I made it back to the gym today after 4 weeks of being completely out. That is NOT like me at all. I did a class called "boot camp" so you can only imagine what that was like after not working out for a month. It was awesome. I needed to work out like that. I now understand why people on the Biggest Loser were close to throwing-up. I came pretty close.

I have been working hard to reclaim myself. If you have read my previous entries on my old blog, you know that I have been working through some tough issues. Issues that I never really wanted to confront head on, but ultimately we can't run forever.

Things have been good. God has been right here beside me through it all. He has grieved with me, laughed with me, and consoled me. I feel his presence everywhere I go. He reminds me so gently that he loves me and that I belong to him. Man...that's a great feeling.

Hi Friends,

I am working on transferring my previous blog from wordpress.com to blogspot. I will post soon!