Anxiety and the call to rest

     I have been debating whether or not I was ready to write this blog post for a couple weeks now.  I mean I so do not have this anxiety thing figured out yet. I have moments that I feel as though my chest will explode and I will not be able to take another breath.  How could I possibly write about how I am "dealing" with anxiety?  But maybe right in the middle of it is where I need to be writing.  Maybe that's how God is working out this whole thing in my life for my best and for other's as well? So here we go...
     Anxiety is not a new thing in my life.  I grew up knowing that my family has a history of this monster we label "anxiety".  I have a wonderful family full of strong women.  We have lots of opinions.  We are loud.  We love fiercely.  We carry the load.  We bear all the burdens.  We see the problem and immediately feel as though it is our duty to find the solution.  Some of those qualities are amazing.  Some of them not so much.  You see, though the world views this kind of strength as a positive attribute, I am learning that often (at least in my own life) some of them are really just symptoms of an underlying issue.  What I am learning is that when I start to feel that it is my responsibility to carry the burdens of everyone around me, to refuse to ask for help when I desperately need it, to assume that I can be the solution to every problem I encounter... I am often dealing with my own anxiety just right under the surface.  My anxiety drives me to control EVERYTHING I possibly can.  To feel uncomfortable with any unsettled situations.  Therefore, I begin the crazy whirlwind of problem solving and micromanaging.  This process often leaves me feeling exhausted, overextended, more anxious and absolutely no good for anyone around me.
     There you have it.  My confession.  I turn into a micromanaging control freak with a short temper and a mean spirit whenever I am relying on myself to solve all the worlds problems.  Or at least my world.  But the past few weeks I have really been asking God to stop this cycle of crazy, to change my "nature" and create in me a new pattern.  I thought certainly this would be a long journey of a lot of work and discipline for myself. Instead, you know what I have found Him saying to me? Rest.  Stop.  Pause.  Deep breaths.  

"Casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7.  

     That simple.  Casting all you anxieties on Him... Notice that is in the present tense... a constant.  Continually casting anxieties.  God, in His beautiful infinite sovereignty and wisdom, knew that we were going to struggle with wanting to take control of our circumstances for ourselves and saw it fit to remind us to continually cast our worries and fears on HIM.  And let's not miss WHY... because He cares for you, for me.  He wants my burdens because He loves me, because He knows the only way to live a peace filled life is to rely on Him.  And how silly for me not to do this, as though I could change one single thing on my own? He so sweetly calls to me and says "My precious daughter, come to me, lay it all at my feet.  Trust me.  I am trustworthy.  Believe me when I say I will work ALL things out for your very best.  I love you." Doesn't that sound too good to be true?  The most beautiful gift of love.  But He is just that good, He is even more good than that...  His love is everlasting and unfailing.  There is not a single thing that we, as His redeemed children, could do to make Him love us one iota less.  And also not one single thing that we could do to make Him love us one iota more.  He just does.  His love is perfect like that.  So other than us.  You can't earn it, you can't lose it.  It just is for His children.  And He is the Master Problem Solver.  The All Knowing One who sees every single thing, past, present, and future.  And He is saying to us all, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Matthew 11:28-29
      I am not naturally good at this, but I know that my sweet loving God is patient and will always be there while I am learning to practice this rest.  He is so beautifully gracious that He requires us not to work harder, do better, figure the problem out for ourselves... Instead He says 'come to me and I will give you rest.'  And I don't know about you, but those words are like the most refreshing water to my scorched and thirsty soul.

Years pass in a single breath

Hello Blogging World!
     Man, it has been a long time since I have typed out my thoughts and life happenings.  And my goodness, has it happened!  It has been four years since I have last written.  Four years that have gone by so quickly it literally leaves me breathless to think about all the changes and milestones we have gone through.  So to summarize it as succinctly as possible... 
     We have grown from a family of 4 to a family of 5!  We welcomed our littlest little into the world in November of 2016.  Our rainbow baby.  Our promised one.  Liam Jude was the perfect addition to our lives, and he definitely keeps us on our toes in true third child fashion.  He is so incredibly loved by his siblings and is spoiled by them more than any grandparent could ever do for this child.  We love him to the depths of our hearts.  Tidwell family of five... We are thankful. 
     15 weeks into the pregnancy we decided to make another HUGE change for our family, we moved.  Not super far, but to a neighboring town with a smaller community.  Lynnlee, our oldest, was starting school that Fall and this was what we felt was best for her transition.  This was a bittersweet move.  We packed up all of our belongings in our beloved Jackson house.  The house we had lived in for every major event in our marriage.  The house our babies came home to.  The house we grew up in.  But at the end of the day, it was just a house... we carried all of those memories with us as we drove away.  
     Fast forward through sooooo many details that I could spend days talking about.  We are living in a rental home in a sweet neighborhood with precious neighbors that have become dear friends.  We are raising up some fiercely independent and high energy kids who are now 8, 6, and 2. Lynnlee is now in second grade.  She is growing into a beautiful young lady who has an intense love for all things girly, yet somehow also manages to be tough as nails.  She has experience some pretty hard times in her little life.  Lynnlee struggles with severe seasonal allergies that have resulted in 18 separate ear drum ruptures.  She is usually working with some level of discomfort, some level of hearing impairment.  But she has thrived.  Five surgeries later, we are still in pursuit of a more permanent solution to her health journey.  She is a trooper and has still managed to do wonderfully in school, play many sports, grow into quite the little artist, and make some of the sweetest friends.  Lynnlee made the best decision she will ever choose for herself last Fall when she prayed for Jesus to forgive her of her sins and live in her heart.  She can often be heard telling her friends about how they should love Him too.  It is the most amazing gift to watch her grow in this way.  She is our little firecracker, our firstborn into our craziness.  She is a joy and we are so proud. 
     Levi, our middle little, my little heartbreaker.  He is as handsome as they come with his beautiful big blue eyes, long eyelashes, sandy blonde hair, and crooked grin.  He is his Daddy's little mini person. He is a warrior.  Smart, oh that boy is smart.  And he is growing into quite the little athlete.  Levi is in Kindergarten.  He loves to read, build LEGOs, and play outside.  He has the most tender heart, which is both a gift and a difficulty some days as his Mom.  He gets it honest.  My little middle child, he has my heart.  His little brain is full of questions and he is always on the prowl for new information.  He has an intense love of music and prefers musicals over just about any genre of film.  (He gets that from me as well). He is going to change the world. 
     And then there is our littlest, Liam.  Our little adventurer.  He is every bit of two, and he is as feisty as they come.  He has the biggest, bluest eyes and white blonde hair.  He will melt you with his giant smile and quite often uses it to his advantage.  As I said, he is spoiled, not by me, but by his siblings (namely Lynnlee), it really is a precious sight to see.  He has caused us our share of fear filled moments, the child has no fear, none.  He also sees no boundaries.  He is our little escape artist that must at all times, be monitored.  He doesn't sleep.... like ever.  I say he runs on sunlight and oxygen like a house plant.  His mom, however, does not and requires sleep that she hasn't gotten in years.  He has night terrors and sleep walks which pretty much keeps in a constant state of alert even while we are supposed to be resting.  But my goodness, when he puts his little hands on my face in the night I am all his.  Sweetest boy, biggest lover.  He loves all dogs. All.  Every single one.  He is just the best. If he survives into adulthood he is going to be one serious force to be reckoned with. 
     Those are the updates on our children... There are also adults in this house, Travis and I are almost 12 years into marriage and 16 years into our relationship.  Being 32 years old myself, that means that half of my life has been spent with this man.  We have seen some of the hardest years of our lives in this time frame.  Many transitions that haven't been easy.  Our marriage has cracked under the pressure, we have said words that have been hard, but at the end of the day we have continued to choose one another, to work hard to love each other to our best ability.  By God's grace alone, we have chosen this life together.  Marriage is hard work you guys, in case you weren't aware.  But it is also a gift to find someone that will choose you at your worst.  That has seen all the dark places that you hide from the rest of the world and says "I'm staying".  Grace, what a beautiful gift of grace.  There will more on that topic soon.  
     So there you have it, a summation of years of our lives into a few paragraphs.  These are the highlights guys, not the entirety of the story that has brought us to this place.  We are growing, changing, and loving every day.  Not because it's perfect, but because it's ours.  I hope to continue to write as the days move forward, there are some BIG changes in the works for the Tidwell family.  I hope you will journey along with us! 
     

I will be still

     This summer has been quite a whirlwind!  I feel like I have run 100 miles and hour since the weather began to warm.  I really like it that way if I'm being honest, I like busy, I like scheduled events, I like to have something to do. (Maybe that's life with a 4 year old and 2 year old, busy is sometimes better...)  But over the course of the past week or so I could feel the busyness really beginning to bear down on me.  I wanted to check out, sleeping more often, feeling more anxious and irritable.  After a few days of this I could see that my body was responding to what my heart really needed.  To slow down.
     We are coming up on the one year anniversary of Levi's accident. If you don't know about that event check out last year's blog post.  But in short, my 18 month old baby was struck by a car, he is okay and fully recovered today.  Sorry to take the wind out of your sails so abruptly, I have yet to figure out a way to say that without it being super dramatic.  There are some events in life like that, dramatic.  This was one of them for our family.  God was so faithful to protect his little body and I am so thankful.  We saw Him in ways that we had never experienced His presence ever before.  We came home, life went on, more hard things happened... Then this month rolled around.  I knew it was coming.  July comes around every year.  So it shouldn't have surprised me when I rolled the calendar over and saw that the month was in fact July.  But I could feel my heart in my throat and my breathing shallow as I read the month, July.  It felt like a weight pressed down on my chest, I could feel it rising, panic, fear, anxiety.  Memories washing over me like a flood.  I pushed them down, cleared my throat, and began making lunch for my two hungry little blondes.  I slept more that day, napped when the kids napped, went to bed early.  The next day, more of the same.  Though I couldn't place my finger on it I felt more irritable, more on edge, I wanted to sleep.  When I woke I still felt exhausted.  I did this for three more days.  Constantly swallowing the lump in my throat, my stomach uneasy, restless sleep, unfocused.  Then yesterday as I'm standing in the choir loft of our church worshiping The Lord it started to become more clear.  I fought back memories that were flooding my mind, images, sounds, and emotions that I felt that horrible day in July.  And as they were coming on I felt defenseless, like waves rushing over me.  I went home immediately following the service and went to sleep.  When I woke I knew I needed to speak it out, to find help, to process the emotion I was unable to control or fully understand.
      ...Tell my husband, he needs to know what my heart is experiencing.  After doing that and seeing tears well up in his eyes I realize that he too may be experiencing these emotions and dealing with them in a different way.  We decide that talking to someone professionally will probably benefit me.
     ...Tell a close and trusted friend.  There is a lot of scripture that explains that we are to bear one another burdens.  To love one another the way Jesus loved.  This includes sharing in celebration and sorrow.  I have been so fortunate to have a group of Godly women in my life that are faithful to love me in every season.  I shared, asked for prayer, and knew that they would do just that.
     ...Seek out Godly counsel.  Someone qualified to deal with my emotional state that can help me wade through the experiences of the past year and the emotions that followed.
     And then make the next right choice, I knew I needed time with God, quiet, uninterrupted, alone.  So I asked God to wake me up this morning, no alarm was set, I asked Him to wake me in time to meet with Him before my family rose.  6:45 this morning my eyes opened and for the first time in days I felt energized enough to get out of bed without a fight.  I put on my pot of coffee.  Grabbed my Journal and Bible (and my favorite purple pen) and sat down on my couch, complete silence, sun rising over the trees, worship music in the background.  I was ready to do some work with God.  I just knew He was going to put me through the ringer, that He was going to remind me of my sinfulness and anxious heart.  And surely He was not pleased.  After all this time with Him you would think I would know that He is holy and just absolutely, but gentle, kind, loving, full of grace and mercy.  And as I began journaling, pouring my heart before Him, confessing my sinfulness, asking Him to meet me, a song began resounding in my heart.

Find rest my soul, in Christ alone

Know His power in quietness and trust 

When the oceans rise and thunders roar

I will soar with You above the storm

Father You are King over the flood

 I will be still and know You are God

     And as I was singing those lyrics in my mind I began to feel my heart beat begin to slow down.  I had been very aware of how it had been racing and pounding for a few days.  I began to journal my thoughts, images of times that I felt safe, calm, and peace filled.  One specific memory came to me, I was a child, probably 4 or so, laying with my Mom in her bedroom "napping".  (I was never a good napper, sorry Mom I now know how sacred that time is!)  She was laying in front of me with her back to me, I was nuzzled against her. (Again, sorry Mom I now know how it feels to have a child plastered to you every. single. moment. of. the. day.)  But I was lying there, watching her back expand when she would breathe. I could feel her heart beat.  And I was lying there I tried matching my breathing to hers, feeling my heart beat and wanting it to be the same as hers.  And as I remember that moment, I remember feeling completely content, safe, and at peace.  I was with my Mom, the person I loved more than anyone on this planet, I was in her presence and she was resting so I could too.  And then I knew, that was God's desire for me too.  Just to be in His presence, lean against His chest, match my breathing to His, and know that I am safe, I can stop fighting the emotions, stop being afraid.  And that is what I have spent my morning doing, just being with God.  No agenda, just a little worship music, eyes closed, and rest. 

     I am not sure why I felt God prompting me to share this experience on the blog today.  Maybe it was to be completely vulnerable, real, and honest.  Maybe there is someone else that needed to be reminded that God just wants you, not the shiny, put together Sunday morning version... But the real, messy, human version.  And He just wants us to meet Him in His presence.  To rest in Him.  To be still and know that He is God.  

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the Lord:

He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, 

out of the miry bog,

 and He set my feet upon a rock,

making my step secure.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the Lord. 

Surviving or Thriving

If you have been following my blog for any amount of time you will surely have noticed that this past year or so has been difficult to say the least.  We have experienced loss like I have not experienced in my entire life combined.  As I was beginning to feel like God was beating up on me, or that He was just too busy to notice, I had an encounter with Him that reminded me that His character is true and sufficient.  I had been hanging on by a thread.  Standing on the ledge.  Feeling like I looked just like this plant.  Withered, beaten, neglected, and barely surviving.  Then my sweet Lord came to me... He met me on a church pew with other sisters who looked just a tired and ragged as I was feeling. (Funny isn't it, that when we are feeling so neglected we forget that we are not alone?) He reminded me in His Word to "understand this, in the last days there will come times of difficulty." ( 2 Timothy 3:1) So what then?  When life beats you down, circumstances feel as though they will overtake you, and you feel as though you are barely hanging on? What do we do then?  That was the question I was coming to the Lord with on this particular day.  And God oh so sweetly reminded me that I have hope.  Hope that He can take any circumstance and make something so beautiful out of it.  Beauty that I couldn't begin to even imagine, much less create.  He can take a person, barely surviving, but willing to be poured into and cause them not just to "make it", but to thrive!  This truly is His desire for my life.  When the storms come, that I wouldn't just "hang in there" or  wait for the phrase "this too shall pass" to become true, but in the midst of the storm to THRIVE.  So, how do I do this... as I was reading a book given to me by a sweet friend, the author said something that really struck a cord in me.  She said "Yes, you can throw pieces at God in anger and say "I do not like the life You have given me, and I refuse to life within these limitations with a humble heart."... However, if you choose to bow your knee and submit to the varied circumstances of your life, God will do miracles... you must accept any limitations by faith, trust in His faithfulness each step of the way, and wait for His grace so you can live a faithful story right in the place you find yourself." (Sally Clarkson) So that is the secret to thriving in the midst of the storm.  Submission, faith, and trust in God.  That He has a greater plan then you can imagine in this moment.  That He is orchestrating all things, not just when things are good and the sun is shining, but on those nights when the storm rages outside the window and your heart feels shattered.  The only difference in the first picture of the wilting plants, and this one is the second picture has been watered, tended to by The Gardener. I'm sure this entailed some painful pruning, but the plant trusted and submitted to The Gardeners plan to create something beautiful! Something that is not merely surviving... but thriving! 

But there was also another picture that God revealed to me.  And this one was harder on my heart than the first two.  Take a look at this plant.  It looks beautiful, like it is flourishing and thriving in that beautiful stone pot.  But the reality is that this plant is neither surviving nor thriving, in fact it has never experienced either, it is artificial.  Fake.  A fraud.  It requires no pruning or watering, no tending, no painful grooming.  No attention from The Gardener.  It is safe from the painful process that The Gardener has in mind for the living plants.  It is plastic.  And as I was thinking about all of the seasons of my life that I have been "plastic", unliving, fake, and safe, it came to me just how much bravery it takes to be real.  To be vulnerable to the process and plan that The Gardener has for our lives.  It is much easier to be fake.  It is much easier to be safe from the storms, in fact they don't matter when you are fake, nothing can hurt you.  But you will never experience the fullness and joy of being cared for and protected by The Gardener.  Being real is worth the pain.  It's worth the vulnerability when you have The Gardener tending to your heart.  

God, please continue to prune me, to tend to my heart, to water my soul with Your Word, the Living Water.  Help me to be vulnerable enough to be real and not artificial, even if I do look like the plant that is barely surviving.  Thank You for Your kindness, mercy, patience, and tenderness.  I submit my life to You.  In Jesus sweet, precious name I pray. Amen

Beauty from brokenness

     This has proven to be one of the hardest, longest, most painful weeks of my life.  The kind of week that seems to last for years and years.  We announced on Sunday afternoon that we were expecting a baby this Fall.  We were so excited to be adding to our little clan and couldn't wait to begin celebrating with those in our lives!  After two fairly uneventful pregnancies, this one seemed to be following suit.  I woke up Monday morning, it was a beautiful day, and decided to meet some friends at the park.  I felt really energized and was thrilled to be outside in the sunshine.  That night around 9:00 I began experiencing cramping and soon recognized that these symptoms were not normal and started worrying about the baby.  Monday night was the longest night I've had in a long time, between cramping and the nausea I was fighting back anxiety by praying over the baby and myself, and waking Travis up to pray over me.  The morning light came and we decided it was time to go to the hospital.  They took blood and did and ultrasound within moments I overheard a nurse in the hall saying "there was no measurable heartbeat" and I knew that they were talking about me.  About my baby.  My sweet little one that we already loved so dearly.  When the doctor came in I could tell immediately that she had already been crying, and this sweet lady delivered the most heartbreaking news, we had lost our baby.  There was no heartbeat. Our sweet little one had gone on to be with Jesus.  And that I was going to begin the process of miscarrying at any moment.  We cried, prayed, held each other, and silently I got dressed.  As we walked to the car, our whole world crashing down around us, God began working in my heart, in my spirit.  The best way to summarize this experience and where we are today is to allow you a glimpse into the heart and thoughts of my time with The Lord.  I hope that this is hope giving and uplifting to anyone who reads it...

God, Father, Healer, how I need You today.  My empty womb, aching with loneliness, fear, pain and yet also peace needs You. God, only You can make beauty from shattered pieces of broken hearts. Only You can create something lovely from the brutality of losing a life.  This little one, never known, never seen, but held safely all the days of its life, this short vapor of an existence was held close to my heart every second of its own heart beating.  God, You see all of this child, every single detail of its DNA, every nuance of its personality, every outward expression of the union of its Mommy and Daddy.  And this child, thought never known this side of eternity, will be loved all the days of our lives, will be carried in our hearts as long as we walk this earth, and one glorious day our eyes and hearts will behold the tiny face of our Lost One.  Because Lord we know that what seems lost to us, has never for one second been lost to You.  You held, and still hold, this precious baby in Your hands and now in Your presence.  So until the day of reuniting, we rest in the peace that comes only from knowing You.  A peace that surpasses all understanding.  One day we will see this face, this life, and even more gloriously, Your own face.  Thank You for each moment we had, we will know Your love, grace, and mercy more fully because we experienced this journey of love and loss.  In Jesus do we put our hope and our trust. 

Isaiah 66:9

"I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born."

Dreaming!

     Have you ever been filled with so many emotions that it feels as though you might bust open at the seams?  Well, that is where I am right now....   There are so many different emotions swirling around in my heart that I feel like I might explode.  I am also uncertain as to what I am feeling moment to moment.  There are so many wonderful things going on in my life right now!  So many avenues and doors God has opened for me to explore!  There is also a lot of hard going on too.  A lot of unanswered questions, unknown next steps, undone current circumstances that I feel as though might swallow me whole.  However, in the midst of the craziness going on around me, there is one thing that I can say for certain that is happening:  God is opening up my heart and mind to dream again!
     Do you remember as a kid when someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up how your mind would race with possibilities; maybe a doctor, a teacher, an astronaut, a singer, a professional basketball player, or a dancer... so many options!  I'm pretty sure I changed my answer every single time someone asked me that question.  Until one day, after many failed attempts at growing 3 feet so I could be a pro basketball player, or I realized that I do not like being in a confined space for long periods of time, those choices began to be narrowed down.  I realized that not all of the options were logical for me.  I realized that I had to be a little more realistic.  I began to think more rationally. That is where the paradigm shift began.  And throughout the years, life circumstances, and failed attempts at a lot of different things, somewhere in the midst of it all, I stopped dreaming.
     I didn't even realize I had done it.  I didn't do it intentionally, but among the college stress, career changes, babies being born, marital hardship, and financial burden, I stopped dreaming.  I started living life in the moment, in reality, afraid to have any hopes or dreams for fear of leaving them unrealized.  It was simply easier on my heart to not dream than to deal with disappointment.  I am very blessed in the life I have!  I have a wonderful, God-loving, hard working, super hot husband, 2 beautiful, healthy, energetic, and full of life children, wonderful family, amazing support system, and above all those things, I am redeemed!  I have a love relationship with Jesus! And somehow, somewhere, I decided that dreaming about something different was wrong or ungrateful, and I never want to be ungrateful!  But in these past few months God has revealed something to my heart.  It's okay to have dreams and ambitions beyond your current circumstances!  It's okay to look into the future and hope for something.
     So what does this mean?  What does this look like when paired together?  I'm not completely certain yet, but so far this is where I have gotten... God loves me, He knows me, He knows my heart, my potential, my dreams, even better than I know them myself!  And guess what?  He wants them for me too!  He placed those dreams in there when he knit me in my mother's womb!  And when I seek Jesus first, when I love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength,  then my dreams align with His desires for my life!  I am not destined to sit in my comfortable home, with my brightly painted walls, and my ordinary life.  I am not simply a pew sitter or a choir member.  There are big things that God has for me in my life!  Now, He may choose to use those avenues, He may leave me in my comfortable warm house with yellow walls and my wonderful church with all of my people, but He is not leaving me here because there is no room to dream, it's because this is where my dreams can be realized!  So, in the center of this ordinary, mundane, life I can see the opportunity, I can dream!  And when I come to God and ask Him to use me for more and give me dreams that can be realized for His glory, I can almost hear Him shouting "YES!!! Finally!  I have been hoping you would ask me for that!"
    So what do I dream?  The answer is a resounding, I have no idea!  But I am so excited to open my heart and mind to the possibilities and pray for God to give me dreams for His glory!  Those are the dreams that matter the most in the end anyway!  I pray that He will continue to reveal more of the unique qualities and desires He placed in my heart before anyone else knew me!  I pray for boldness and bravery to follow through with those dreams once I know what they are!  I pray for revelation even in the ordinary and mundane every day.  This is what it looks like to dream after years of living in complacency! Join me, let's dream together!

The end of a really hard year

     Well, it certainly has been quite a while since I last wrote.  Not for lack of words, but possibly for too many.  This year has been wonderful, beautiful, horrible, exhausting, promising, and so many other descriptions that I could add just thinking back over the past 363 days.  Through it all, through the financial burdens, the health issues, the friendships fostered, the relationships lost, there has been one consistent theme through it all... God is still so good.  I must confess a lack of faith in that throughout the months, but God has shown up to renew my strength and remind me of all of His faithFULness!  In the past month or so I have begun praying in quite a different manner than I ever have before.  Let me start at the beginning of the most recent journey I am on with God....
      It all started about a week before Thanksgiving.  We were struggling through some pretty serious financial decisions and really weren't sure what the next step to take was going to look like.  I began having a whole host of doubt plague my heart, "where is God?" "does He really want to bless ME?" "why do I feel so full of fear, I have seen God provide before?" and so many more.  I opened my Bible and began reading in Hebrews 11... I read how Moses had the faith to lead the people through the wilderness, to cross the Red Sea, how Abraham had the faith that God would make him a great nation, how Sarah trusted that God would give her a child in her old age, and so on and so on.  As I was reading this passage I was thinking "Okay God I get it, they had faith. If I'm being honest here, I don't, now what?"  And then I sat there, feeling helpless, frustrated, and embarrassed that the truth was what it was.  I didn't have faith.  I didn't trust God.  I couldn't muster it up, pretend it was there, fake it till I could make it... it just wasn't.  So I cried, I confessed my lack of faith, I asked God to fill me up with it because frankly I wasn't sure where else it could come from at this point.
     Then I picked up my Bible and started reading again, Hebrews 12:1-2

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" at this point, the Bible student in me perked up, see I have been taught that it you see the word "therefore", you should ask yourself "what is it there for?".  So I looked back up at what I just read, all about the heroes of my faith, all about their trust in God and how God showed up for them.  They are the "great cloud of witness".  I could feel my heart beating a little faster now... so I continued. "let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race which is set before us."  Now the former athlete in me was getting stirred up.  Run with endurance, where do you get endurance? Through practice! Through trials and failed attempts and more practice! At this point I feverishly turned to James 1 and read "Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (endurance)"  I was feeling the "Hallelujah" rising up in my heart! So I kept reading... "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and it seated at the right hand of the throne of God."  I laid back on my bed, closed my eyes, and pictured this scene. It was as though I was watching a movie.  Walk through it with me...

      I can feel the pavement beneath my feet, my heart pounding, my breath beginning to shorten.  My legs feel heavy and tired, but I am running.  I am putting one foot in front of the other, I am not fast, but I am running.  Then I begin to feel the wind in my face, a breeze blowing through my hair and reminding me that I am still in the race.  Then I realize I am carrying a huge backpack on my back, it is heavy, full of memories, fears, failures, hopes, dreams, and a dozen pairs of shoes I'm sure ;) and I remember "lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely" and I take it off.  It wasn't difficult really, I just slipped the straps off my shoulders and let the pack fall to the ground, and I leave it there. Now running feels a bit easier.  I feel lighter, and my steps a bit faster.  Then I hear it, cheers to my left and my right, and there they were!  My heroes of the faith, they have finished their race, they ran with endurance and they are cheering me on!  Screaming like maniacs, encouraging me to keep running, to set my eyes on the race in front of me, not the heavy burden I left behind.  And now I can hear Him, Jesus, seated at the end of the race, on His throne, He is cheering louder than all of the others!  He is my biggest fan, my loudest voice, He finished His race "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross". And now He is resting on His throne, encouraging me to keep running.  

     I opened my eyes with tears running down my face.  I am not alone, it is not based on my faith alone.  I can stand on the shoulders of my heroes, those men and women that have gone before.  Some of them in the Bible, some of them I had the privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder with in this life.  All of them cheering loudly saying "keep running, it's oh so worth it!"  And so I do, even through this hard year.  Some people have asked me how I do it?  How I keep going after this difficult season?  And this is the secret, I have a great cloud of witnesses and my Jesus cheering me on... My prayer for this next year is this verse, that I will run with endurance, run freely and unhindered, toward the things that God has set before me.  That I will hear those voices and know that I can trust the God that is the same today as He was in ages past when those great heroes ran their races.  I will press on, I will endure!