What Faith Can Do

Love that Kutless song.  Makes my heart soar.  Sometimes, I forget what is important.  I forget how much faith God has instilled in me and what a gift that is.  I see miracles every day in the lives of children.  I see kids growing to be adults.  I see people who fall down and get up.  Every day.  One after another. 
I am blessed.  I am filled.  Though life has been really hard, it is even in these times that I see how amazingly God uses the hard things to make me strong.
I do not want to be tough.  I do not want to be stoic.  I do not want to simply cope.  I want to be real.  I want to be vulnerable.  I want to live fully.  I want joy to permeate my soul.  I want to be the person that makes the day of the clerk in a store.  I like being the one who makes sure to smile.  To say hello.  To give a little bit of hope.  That is who I am.  Can't believe I nearly forgot to be thankful for that.  Can't believe that I almost lost faith in who I am......not pridefully, but gratefully.  Because there's only one me.  And when I have faith in who God created me to be then it means that what He made me to do also gets done. 
I want to learn what faith will do in my life.  Every single day.  With His love casting out all fear.....note, that's ALL, not just SOME.  His PERFECT love.  Whole.  He doesn't give me partial love.  He doesn't hold back.  He doesn't punish me.  He allows me to learn at my own pace.  He is a differentiated instructor.  He teaches me just the way I learn.  He gives me what I need to learn.  He sends arms and hands into my life because He knows that I'm not an oral learner....I'm visual and tactile.  He GETS me.  And I have to have faith in that.  Faith in Him.  In His goodness. 
That kind of faith changes my life.  The ethereal kind of faith....where people just talk about believing in something way out there that doesn't make any sense doesn't make my life different.  What makes things happen in my life is when my faith becomes personal.  When I believe and act on the fact that not only is God good, but He is good to me.  Not only is God love, but He loves ME.  Personally.  Up close.
I have been struggling through this.  I am so wounded that it has been hard to dig up and out.  Most of the time I just feel like I'm sitting and waiting for Him to lift me....and He does.  He is the lifter of my head.  He lifts me out of the pit.  I can trust Him.  Completely.  Even when I am totally a mess.
And, frankly, I am.
I am not any of the things that I think a good christian woman looks like.  But, I am a christian woman.  And I just look like me.  But He thinks well of me.  Because He sees me through Jesus.  I'm not standing on my own merits.  I don't got none to stand on. ;)  I can only stand on His promises.  With His covering.  I can simply take Him at His word that that's enough.  I do.  I choose. 
And that faith is changing my life.  Moment by moment.  I've learned about religion.  I've sought a relationship.  And He is responding to my deepest heart needs.  He is meeting me in my most painful places and showing me what my tiny little amount of faith can do. 
Oh, I still simply want the sabbatical.  And, honestly, I think for healing to begin, it's a necessity.  I need my own place.  I need to make my own way.  I need to have my husband see and understand that my provision comes from my Father.  To understand that deepest part of my heart.  Because there lies the foundation of all that I am.  I have never walked alone.  I have never made my way.  He has fed me, clothed me and met my needs that I can't even describe.  He sees me in all of my weakness and chooses me.  And THAT is love.  What we have been living is not love.  It is works.  It is people pleasing.  It is futile.  So, I am going to choose truth.  And faith.  I am going to keep seeking what God has.  I believe that it's good.  Even if I have to go on through the hard things.....