Rear view mirror talk

I was really tired about thirty minutes ago because it has been an incredibly long and hard week but I got a second wind suddenly so here we are…

I thought I would share this because for many of my Albany peeps, it is hard to keep you all updated on life with Kels and myself so this is an update as well as a testimony (again) to the faithfulness of the Lord. 

You know sometimes (actually most of the time) the Lord doesn’t reveal to us why he takes us through certain things or why he allows things to happen the way that they do but looking back, his reasoning is usually crystal clear. Mike Fortenberry ( a guy my dad was good friends with in high school that now teaches sometimes at the new church Kelsey and I became a part of) said something I won’t ever forget regarding this. He said, “Your rearview mirror is for perspective not direction.” You see, we look back on the past not to live in the guilt of sin, but to see the faithfulness of the Lord. It gives us perspective.

Kelsey and I were talking about this very thing this morning. Just to share a little bit about our journey here in Columbus… Kelsey and I moved here for two reasons. 1) to go to school because our grandfather offered to let us live with him and 2) to live with him so that he would not be alone since our grandmother passed away from cancer three years ago. Coming here was very hard. There are many reasons that it was hard. Some hardships were to be expected, such as missing family and etc but other hardships were not expected. We both felt like the Lord walked us through a season of life that was almost like a spiritual desert. We both grew personally with the Lord because suddenly we were not in any type of Christian community anymore like we came from at Sherwood and so we just had a lot of one on one time with the Lord. And this was really good, but doing life with out any close fellow believers walking beside you is HARD. THANK GOODNESS Kelsey and I had each other. We had found a church that had pretty solid teaching, but we had a really hard time connecting there. Kelsey described it as “feeling like an outsider” when we went. To clarify, this church is a great church and we are not downing it. For some reason there was just not a lot for us to get involved in there and we had a hard time connecting with people there, but it was a good church none the less.

Those of you who have been through this same scenario know that it can be frustrating to not have solid Christian friends to be accountable to and study Gods word with and do life together with. So we describe that season of life as our spiritual desert simply because it was just us and the Lord. We felt very alone many days.

Recently I’m sure some of you saw my post about the new church called “My Church” (the name is taken from Matthew 16:18 where Jesus says “ I will build my church” in case any of you wondered about the oddish name.) that Kelsey and I have become a part of. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I have been a little emotional about becoming a part of that church (a good emotional) because, to use a word picture, it has almost been like the Lord has opened the door to a dam and the dry river we had been walking in was suddenly engulfed with water. And It has been a little overwhelming….in a really awesome way. The Lord has just provided so many people in a VERY short amount of time who have helped us plug in quickly and who made us feel like we were never not a part of My Church. He has provided women (one in particular… who also has a heart for adoption..eek!) for us to be able to be mentored by and look up to and observe to try and figure out this whole “growing  up and being and adult” thing. I. MEAN…. I get emotional just talking about all of the things that the Lord has orchestrated in the past few weeks that have ended that spiritual desert that we went through. HE. IS. AWESOME.

But going back to that statement about the rear view mirror…even though the desert we went through was hard on some days, Kelsey and I both agreed that we would not trade it for the world. We grew closer to each other, we grew closer to our family, and we grew closer to the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad it is over for now, but I look back and am in AWE at the faithfulness of the Lord even when I was not faithful.  Now I appreciate even more the gift of Christian community… I have more of a passion to serve… I have more of a love for Gods word… all because of the desert. Our faith is not tested in times of prosperity and ease. It is tested in the darkness of those really hard days when you won't make it except to rely fully on him and trust that his word is true when it says that he is GOOD and SOVEREIGN and WISE and COMPLETELY in control. 

Looking back… I can tell you. He IS good. He IS sovereign. He IS wise. He IS COMPLETELY in control. He LOVES us. He is FAITHFUL and he NEVER fails. 

1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of faith- which is more precious than gold- may be found to result in praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

James 5:11 You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Is 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.

#knowhim #makehimknown #gratefulforthedesert #heisfaithful

until next time...