A Walk with Jonah…or maybe a Run!

Whatever God has called you to do should be a privilege.

This statement stood up, slapped me in the face and made me rethink the way I look at those “interruptions”!

Being single was never in my plan. When I married it was for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health till death do us part. The one thing I never wanted more than anything in my life was to be a single mother.  Family was my plan, my life. Raising children together, attending events together, sharing life with someone…. Family!! Dinner, movies, church, vacations, and just those quite moments sitting on the couch together. The small things like waiting for the other half of your home to pull into the driveway to make the day complete.  These days, dinners are lonely, I attend events alone, and no one is rushing home to make the day complete. It starts and ends with a quietness that is haunting and some days can still hurt the same as it did the very first night.  I don’t like it and may never but the best thing I ever did was admit that I didn’t. To stop pretending I was better off, stop pretending that I thought it was for the best, and stop playing into everyone else’s take on my life, my marriage, and my now broken family.  Just because I don’t like this season of my life, fully that is, does not mean I can’t see the privilege in what God has called me to do at this time. I can see His hand in things, I understand that there is a purpose even though I can’t fully understand that purpose. I trust that anything God has allowed, rather I like it or understand it, is better than anything I could ever plan for myself.

My life was interrupted much like Jonah’s was, everything I had known, everything I wanted for myself and those I cared about “my people” were all of a sudden no longer within my grasp, the coziness and security I had grown to treasure was unexpectedly pulled from me.  What life was supposed to be was suddenly no longer available and no matter what I did to fight it, I failed. I begged God not to send me down this path, I have begged for him to restore all that the enemy has taken from me and my boys.  I have spent countless nights asking for my life and my family back. Where I don’t understand why God would allow the enemy the access to destroy such a sacred covenant, nor why he continues to allow the enemy the ability to blind His children into their own destruction. I have learned it’s not for me to understand but it is my responsibility to know that I don’t have to understand to obey.  I must see there is a purpose greater than myself and my self-seeking happiness in this world.

I have a choice

I can look at my lack of understanding to the purpose of my interruptions’ and I can take my displeasure to the factors within this season of life and use them as a crutch to do “what’s best for me” or I can admit I wasn’t created to make myself happy, nor to acquire all the things I desire. I was created to serve God no matter the cost to my personal feelings or goals. To serve Him even when I believe I’ve been through enough and deserve to be happy, to have the fairy tale. To serve Him even when I don’t agree with what He has allowed because He is greater than I, He loves me more than I even love myself, but most of all because I fully understand He is the author of my story…even the chapters I want to skip, forget and erase.

So even though I never desired to be in a position to be able to minister, to counsel or to help others, the way I now can as they navigate through the emotions and heartaches of divorce, abuse, affairs, single parenting and all that has come with this interruption.  I have chosen to accept the call God has placed on my life, to understand the only reason God would allow me to endure such pain and heartache is because the purpose to the Kingdom is so much greater in the later than in the former.

Even though I still have moments that images, phrases, names, songs and smells send me to what could be a sinking place of despair, I must make the conscious decision daily to put God before myself and not live within the parameters the enemy tries to chain me to. I must look at what the bigger picture is about and the benefit to the Kingdom instead of living based on my feelings and desires for a comfortable life. With every moment that I choose not to rely on my understanding, all the times I hold on to what God has revealed and all that He has done during this time and not focus on the destruction and constant pot stirring by the enemy, I grow closer to God. I hear His voice a little louder, I feel His presence a little stronger, His Spirit consumes me a bit more and offers me peace before I even know I need it.  Surrendering to Gods cause for life’s interruptions gives you a whole new perspective. You see past your pain, disappointment and heartache and you begin to see joy through heartbreak, progress amidst brokenness, blessings in the pain. You will begin to see God in the darkness and realize its only dark because you refuse to CHOOSE to turn on the LIGHT!

God is in everything…… you just have to be willing to look past yourself to see Him!!