This time last year I was preparing for a big wedding day and a big move to Texas. Now I am preparing for a big move again and this time, with a husband! We are moving back to Arizona!
We have so many emotions stirring in our hearts but most of all, we have joy and we have peace. What a year 2014 has been!
I have been reflecting today on my previous post, Making Me Move. It came from an honest place. An exciting time. I really did think that I was moving into a season where my dream job existed. Austin. That church. Those precious girls. Texas: the Ministry Mecca!
And I was right. And I was wrong. I was a blend of both.
Look at what I said in January in my post:
“A mentor of mine recently reminded me that God is always in the business of doing whatever He has to do to make me more dependent on Him.”
Little did I know what God was going to do!
He made me His. In a NEW way. He drew me to Himself in a way that could only be done in Austin, at that church, with those precious girls, in the Bible-belt of Texas. So in that sense, I was right. God was giving me a glimpse of my dreams. But I was wrong about the details. What He did most is show me that the dreams I have are HIS for me. He showed me this year that it turns out, I am not crazy (at least not about Him). I will always be involved in ministry in some capacity and He revealed that in a beautiful way this year. I have made Him small and trusted my own ideas of what doing His work should look like. And He corrected that this year, painfully but sweetly at the same time. Maybe that is what it means to be Sweetly Broken.
He also showed me where I am weak, but then He showed me how strong He can be through me when I stop flailing and sit still. He showed me that He is everything I want and need and He is everywhere I go. Arizona, Texas. He is.
He showed me how to scratch the surface of learning to be a wife. To be a team. To come to Him for refreshing in order to be a refreshing for others.
I have been freed this year. Liberated of the striving. Liberated of the people-pleasing, the preoccupation with approval. Liberated from my finite and small definition of ministry. Liberated from myself. And drawn into Him. Given a peace that surpasses understanding because it’s not peace I have derived from an identity in relationships or roles, but my identity as His. When I stop filling in the blank of identifying with a human relationship or a current job title, I am free.
I love the definition of the word identity in the British Dictionary: “to establish who the holder, owner, or wearer is by bearing their name and often other details such as a signature or photograph.”
I bear the name of Christ through His death and resurrection and His signature is written on my heart as my Creator, My Father.
I am His Daughter!
What can this life offer me that is better?
…
Then I go back again to that same blog post I wrote and there’s this:
“I know that God could still take us somewhere NEW again and I could be writing another painful blog about what I don’t understand.”
That day in January is blowing my mind right now. Because I don’t understand. Not completely. And this year has been painful. But I am beginning to see the fruit of what He does in me in the Valleys. So maybe understanding Him isn’t the point. It never was. Trusting Him is.
I am excited to see what He has in store for me and James in this new season. And I pray that I will look back on this year as the year that I finally began to trust Him and His ways, and to embrace what it means to be truly His.