If You Would Have Asked Me

If you would have asked me for an honest evaluation of my life eight years ago, or ten, I would have said that while I knew I still needed growth (as growth is always a necessary part of life), but also would have stated that I felt I was in a good place spiritually, mentally, and in relationships such as family and friendships. Life was not perfect, with some real deep challenges in that season. We were in transition. The work we had pioneered and labored in over the years we were handing over. There was pain in connection to that transition as our heart was intertwined with people and the ministry, but in it general was a good experience with positive outcomes. We were allowing others to step up and step into greater leadership, and all indicators were that we were stepping into the next thing God had for us.

Over the past eight years, I have grown as person more than I could have imagined. And from this vantage point, I see how small I was in my thinking and maturity in so many ways. My ability to love. My capacity for more. It is easy to reference our lives from a position that limits and never realize it.

I was a good husband, honoring my wife in friendship, love, and as her care giver during illness and eventual passing. In so many ways I have grown and became better at being a husband, and even now, I would be a be different man…even more understanding, compassionate, and listening. Loved my kids and sacrificially raised them, and I am learning how to do a whole lot better, to listen more, more kind when agitated, and more graceful and understanding in moments of deep longing and despair. With God, I have just scratched the surface, and after going through tremendous loss, there is a faith and direction in my relationship with Him, depths untold ahead available, more than I thought I understood by far as I am more dependent, more in need. As I open my eyes and heart more to the eternal and what is after this life, I see life in a whole new way.

I am doing several courses and reading books to help me develop in this season. Here is some of what I read yesterday:

BELIEFS are the basis for DECISIONS

BELIEFS drive DECISIONS

EXPERIENCES form BELIEFS

What am I believing about God? Myself? My future? My calling?

Part of the effects of loss and trauma is how we take a look at these kind of questions. More gentle. More caucious. More wanting genuine truth and not supposedly obvious answers. More dependence on God for the answers and less assuming I know.

This past week, two of my kids started at Bible College. One doing second year to finish and the other graduated a year early from high school to do year one. We walk a journey together. I start a course later today that will be three afternoons a week. There is a whole lot of emotions and just feeling lost that goes on when you are maneuvering the challenges of life and loss. As one writer of a book I am reading states, there is one constant in life: change. Therefore, what kind of life do you want in five years? Where do you want to be? What kind of person will you be?

These are intentional questions that require intentional actions.

I am excited to live life at a whole new level. It did not take tragedy to get me to live life to its fullest as we did our best, but I find an invitation from God…to go deeper than I have ever gone before! This all comes with an incredible awareness…I cannot get there. It has to be Divine Partnership. Divine Grace. Divine Healing. Divine Revelation.

What are the EXPEREINCES that have become the BELIEFS you have formed? How are they molding your DECISIONS…everyday…small and great! Paving the way for what your future will be? Allow God into those secret places. Allow Him to take you to His. To reveals treasures and mysteries.

TO REBUILD LIFE AND LOVE!