Faith Journey
My faith journey is a continual journey of glancing back but focusing forward. It’s remembering where God met me in the pits of grief and despair, lifting me up, guiding me out, surrounding me not only with Himself, but with a community.
His goodness and faithfulness holds me in a present state of gratitude. It is a lifelong process of dependence on Him and clinging to His promises. It is a journey of thanksgiving, praising God for joy and abundant love, and His steadfast presence in sorrow, fear, chaos, and the mundane.
Like any journey, this road is difficult to predict and most of the time does not go like we imagined. Today instead of maps, we use GPS. It positions us, navigates us, and has a timing service all on a little screen right in front of us.
It has an overview of our destination and even gives us alternate routes. There is a starting point and an ending point marked with a checkered flag. We even have a voice telling us where to go, how fast to go, which hazards are ahead, police activity, road construction, and detours! Finally we hear, “You have arrived at your destination.” Like the GPS, we have His living word, His voice, and His Holy Spirit to guide us along this faith journey.
Mine is a journey of learning to trust in God and believe in His faithfulness. As I grow closer to Him and the more I rely on Him, the more I realize that He is always faithful, and He never lets me down. I have had many difficulties where I have had to choose whether to believe God and trust in His faithfulness and His promises or go my own way.
I hold onto the passage in Hebrews 13:5-6 that says, “Never will I leave you, Never will I forsake you. So I say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.”
God’s faithfulness has cleansed me, changed me, protected me and given me value. He placed me in the midst of others who had survived difficult and similar experiences. His faithfulness placed me around mentors and women who would not replace my mom, but gave me the loving support, guidance, discipline, and encouragement this broken heart needed. They enabled me be a mom to my son and daughter and also to be the wife I am called to be for my amazing husband Michael.
Through a ministry known as Heartfelt, these women would love this broken, twice-divorced, shame-filled woman and remind me that I had a purpose in the Kingdom. Seeing God’s faithfulness in the people He has placed in our path would opened me to trusting Him and asking Him for the desires of my heart. When I needed a hug from a mom, He instead gave me twenty moms!
My church family taught me to see past the hurt and extend the forgiveness I had been given. The more I see my own sins and how much He has forgiven me, the easier it is for me to forgive others. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Remember, we are created in the image of the all-powerful, all knowing, all wonderful creator of the universe. I am valuable because God loves me. He values me so much that He sent His son to die for me (John 3:16). That is value that cannot be taken from me!
When I prayed and desired for my sister and I to worship and have a normal meal with our dad, God’s faithfulness opened the gate at Angola, and—surrounded by friends—we had a meal around a table, worshiping God the Father right beside my physical father. Not only once, but twice, this has happened. He is faithful and true (Revelation 19:11).
God’s faithfulness does bring rescue, redemption, and restoration. I can look back over the last 32 years and say I am grateful to have the context of understanding of where I was, where I could have been, and where I am now.
Today, His faithfulness has given us the opportunity to go behind the walls of prisons to give hope to the hopeless and set captives free in His Name. His faithfulness has restored a broken legacy, allowing me to see my children walking in the Lord, and my son and daughter-in-law raising their children, my grandchildren, to do the same.
So let’s journey together holding onto this promise: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). In grief and in glory, great is His faithfulness!