One year & one lesson

This morning, my Facebook memories reminded me of a little thing that happened today. Apparently, one year ago today, I took a step of faith in starting this blog. Many of you have been apart of this journey and I truly am so thankful for all the words of encouragement you all have given me over the year. You have shared, read and supported. But what many people do not know is this had been a dream of mine that had been growing in my heart for a long time. Like..for a couple years at least.
For over a year at least I even knew what I would call it. My best friends and I would always talk about what topics we would write about on our blogs, whether it be things God was teaching us, missions, the orphan crisis, Church, or adoption.

But for whatever reason, it just never happened. It never came together.

There were several reasons I think why it never happened. They were little things like being too busy. But also, I knew I needed to learn more about God for myself and experience more of Him before I went and wrote about Him. But there was one thing, one really big thing that made me so afraid of doing this, that literally was 95% of why I never started this blog earlier.

And that was fear.
Yep, fear.

Fear of failing, not being good enough, making myself look bad in front of everyone, there were so so many fears I had about starting this blog. I knew that I was not the best writer in the world, that gift was definitely my sister's. I was and have always been the more artistic one. In fact, I would have labeled writing as one of my "weaknesses". So when God began to put this dream on my heart, I was so confused. I told Him, "Okay listen, I like the plan, but you have the wrong person. I am not a writer. Never have been. I've always been to ADD to sit down and get the words in my head down onto paper. I could never complete a writing project. Much less make it comprehendible AND have people read it. So God, please choose someone else." This happened several times, where I would tell God He had the wrong person, but the desire just got stronger.

Till finally, I just said, "Okay God fine I will do this, but it's not going to work." Leading up to launching the blog and in the weeks following, God just kept whispering, "'Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. "So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.'" 

Every couple of months or so, God would press on my heart this certain topic or something I was learning to write about, and every single time He would provide what to say,  and He provided the time. Whenever I felt fear rise in my heart, He would meet it with truth and His promises. 

That He is a God whose power works best in my weakness. 

I very quickly learned how powerful it is when we allow God to use our weaknesses in His plan. Something beautiful happens when God is glorified in our surrender of our weaknesses. Because He gets to supernaturally come around and fill us with His power. It becomes an "only God" moment, because His power is just so real and it is overwhelmingly evident that this is not me, but God. 

I experienced this again a couple weeks ago when I was asked to come speak at a Christian gathering run by middle school students in their school. Every other week they have a guest speaker come speak on different topics, around 40 kids come and it is just a really cool opportunity for community and fun. Little did everyone know is that I was feeling like God was giving me the desire to look for opportunities to speak. But speaking is another thing that I thought was "not for me''.  If you have known me for more than 5 minutes, you know that I am naturally a quiet person. Growing up I had gone to speech therapies, and when I get nervous I often stutter. I was really okay with not speaking in public, again, there was a lot of fear and insecurity. But God kept pressing it on my heart the desire to speak and share what He's been teaching me. The day finally came and I did it. I was in awe all throughout it how just at peace I was through the whole thing. 

I told my student pastor yesterday when he asked about it, "It is honestly so cool to me to watch time and time again, God just come through and meet me in my weakness. And how He continues to supernaturally fill me with His power for His glory. Even though I was nervous, I just felt so peaceful." My pastor told that was what the Bible calls "peace that surpasses all understanding." How even in hard moments when there is fear or when we are choosing to let God use our weakness, He is right there with us.  

It is ever easy, NO. That's why it's called steps of faith, because it is often times scary or uncomfortable because we can not see the end result. But through our open-handed yeses, He is always faithful to meet us right there in unknown. You never know how God is going to supernaturally come around through your yes. You have to "Play the Movie" as my student pastor would say. We as humans can only see what is right in front of us, while God sees the overarching big picture. So we can trust our unknown future to a Known God. 

So here's to lessons on courage and letting God use my weaknesses and to many more years of stories of His power and peace.