Amazing What a Little Perspective Can Do...

DW and I just got back from the most amazing lunch date this afternoon. We've been painting the facility, working on the bathroom that debuts in January, and doing our "budget/goal meeting" for next year for FitLab. At one point we looked at one another and said, "Do you realize that if (blank) hadn't happened, then we wouldn't be where we are now?" Each time we mentioned something that the Lord orchestrated along our journey to being business owners, it prompted another memory of something else that had to occur before that and something before that...and so on. All of these somethings that we had NO idea were steadily working us in the direction of where we find ourselves today. The more we talked and the more we realized how many unique puzzle pieces it took coming together to form this picture, the more humbled and amazed we felt. God is an amazing God let me tell you!

How funny (and sad) that it took saying "no more" to this infertility struggle in order to become aware of all the good we've experienced in the last several years. MOST of the things we listed independently seemed like a "trial" at the time. Job losses, moving 4 times in 4 years, selling my favorite car (ever), making a decision to stop spending what we made and begin living according to Dave Ramsey's principles so we could have a better life later...the list could go on. Yet here we are, living out a dream we talked about even before we got married. We dreamed of owning a business that used our talents, gifts, and passion...and was also a "cover" for a ministry into the lives of the people in our community.

It makes me so overjoyed to have come to this realization but also saddened to realize I've wasted so much energy on focusing on the one struggle in an otherwise blessed existence. I've allowed my infertility to blind me to all the good HE has done! It's been less than a week since DW and I decided to take our break and put the focus back on the place(s) it belongs: first and foremost, our trust in God's unique (albeit puzzling) plan, and secondly, on each other. In only a week's time, I've felt this rising up inside of things I've been desperately missing: hope, joy, faith in what's to come when the timing is right.

Oh, how could I have gotten so off track? Why is it that problems we're facing cause us to be so tunnel-visioned? Well...or maybe that's just me. I've always been that way. My mom reminds me that in the second grade I would look at the fourth graders and let it paralyze me. "How will I ever make it through the fourth grade?" I'd ask her, truly afraid of imminent failure. She'd always remind me, "Baby steps, honey...there is a lot that you'll learn along the way." Even now, on the toughest days, God uses her words in my heart to speak to me and uplift my soul: "Baby steps, my child...there is a lot you'll learn along the way."

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:5-6)

Never doubting? Nope, don't have that down for sure. I have truly let this journey toss me from wave to wave - it has sucked me in and spit me out. Yet, it is my hope that through this I will somehow learn to struggle well, unswerving in my faith though the waves crash all around me.

And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God." Matt 14:22-33

I'm such a Peter...I ask God to help me out of the boat and then I immediately start looking around me at the storm and get afraid. Oh, Lord, will you show me what it truly means to trust you?