FAITH-4-THE JOURNEY

Faith 4 The Journey

Recently I found myself down on my knees, winded by all that life had thrown at me and unable to see any hope for a future. I fell deep into a black pit of despair and believed that where I was, no one could rescue me.

I had reached the end of my own ideas, my feeble strength had given way and my wisdom had revealed itself as foolishness. It wasn't that I doubted there was a God – on the contrary, I believed so much in Him that I had trouble understanding what He would want to do with me?

If there really was a Father in Heaven who loved me – why was I feeling so defeated by life? Why was I so unsuccessful in my own eyes? Why didn't I have faith in myself to do the little things that others made look so easy?

This wasn't just some emotional crises, for the first time in my life I felt a complete mental and spiritual fracture somewhere deep in my spirit. It was something so significant I knew I couldn't simply gloss over it with words and good deeds – I had real needs that needed addressing. Rather than continue on autopilot and wrestling my way through all uncertainties like I usually did, I knew there would be only one way to fix things: this time I had to lift my hands in complete surrender.

It was at this point that I took what I like to call a “selah moment” - I stopped, paused long enough to listen and that was when I began to hear the voice of God in my situation.

There are all kinds of circumstance that can bring you to this uncomfortable place - divorce, infertility, rape, conflict or neglect - but the one thing they all have in common is that when you have truly sunken deep into the darkest of pits, there is only one person who can hear your cry!

God met me right there in my brokenness. In my pitiful mess. He didn't expect me to come to Him fixed – in fact, He came all along to help fix me. I just hadn't expected His help!

Somewhere in my Christian walk I'd forgotten that God comes to heal and mend the broken. He comes expecting there to be a place in which to place the balm of Gilead into our lives. But it is we who forget that with every fixing, through life there will be another breaking and thus need for another fixing and so on and so forth.

Perhaps you have never understood that God came to HELP SAVE you? Maybe you grew up hearing about an angry, vengeful God who would never stop to tell you how to make your life better? Or maybe you've simply lost faith in people, your family, your career choice or the idea that things will ever get better? Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe this circumstance has arisen to give you a chance to hear something from God, pivotal to your future?

The clouds didn't all part in a day for me either – there were no sounds of the angels singing in Heaven – just one morning I got up and realized I had a decision to make.

Either I accepted that there was no point in or to my life and it was all just a waste of time OR I stopped the pity-party and made a decision to TRUST GOD at His word.

I had to face and accept the fact that there was no physical evidence that my situation would change immediately. First, I had to be okay with that. Then I had to DARE TO BELIEVE that maybe, just maybe, if I placed my trust in Him, things actually would change!

I stopped everything for a few weeks and just spent time talking to God. Sometimes, I spoke out loud, sometimes in my head, but I told Him everything I was thinking and feeling and not understanding. I wrote some of it down, I started Christian counseling sessions. In my time, I asked God questions, I argued my opinions – and gradually I got back to a place where I understood that He could hear me and had answers waiting all around me. Some of these answers came in the forms of books, some in counseling, some through people, others in music – but I heard His voice loud and clear.

It took courage to be vulnerable in front of others, to allow myself to be seen as weak – but this healing was needed so deeply that I excused my embarrassment and sense of pride and came to Him like a child.

In this fetal position, God leaned over and breathed into me new life.

He began to soothe me in all the aching places and put a community of people around me – parents, siblings, friends – so I would not have to walk through this painful fork in my journey alone.

This was not a time for rationalization – in fact, you could not make 'sense' of what caused my break down and how I was able to so quickly get back up through rational explanation – but God, God Himself, placed a banner of protection over me and saved me from myself. Where He needed to cut deep, He spoke sharply and where he needed to clean the surface wounds, He spoke gently. I knew everything I experienced was real because it was filled with a deep spiritual truth.

I understood I wasn't being lied to or appeased by God, He was actually taking care of me and mopping the mess of my life up!

God is an incredible cleaner who comes to all those who call upon Him. He reveals a different face to us in every moment of the journey of life- some recognizable, others a little strange. But we can all keep faith when we remember that the journey itself belongs to Him. He alone knows your beginning and ending – and in Gen 1:9 He already said 'It is good'.

Like Jacob, I came out of that valley with a few scars – and a limp which has informed the faith-walk I now am on. But more importantly, I learned the value of HOPE. Without it, we cannot have FAITH that there will be a tomorrow. Without FAITH, we cannot continue the journey that God has laid out for us.

Will it always be easy? Will it always be pleasant? NO. But in those times, you can rest assured that God will never leave or forsake you. God is always with you to lend you HIS FAITH....You don't have to go it alone.
© Anna Marie Hopewell 2008
Editor-in-Chief
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