Trusting

Do you ever say yes to something for no other reason then because you felt like God was leading you to? 

I gotta be honest, I rarely ever do that. Something in me needs to be sure that it's where God is leading me, it's not necessary disobedience my yes just takes a little longer. 

I like to think things through, I like to talk with God about it over and over again. His answer never changes but I always feel like I need reassurance and He is so gracious and patient in giving to me over and over again. 

Well this one time I just said yes! 

I got an email, I had NO DETAILS and so before I could doubt I went with God and I just said yes. 

It's not 100% certain but I think that yes will change my life. 

I'm praying it will change someone else's life too. 

Excuse me for being vague but I can't say a lot until the deal is done. 

But I can say this. I said yes to a baby girl. I said yes before I knew anything about her, not her age, not her gender, not her situation. Something I thought I'd never do! 

I have said yes before but something feels different with her this time. I've not met her yet but I love her like she is my own, something that came later with all my previous placements. 

Another different thing is that I've had to wait for her. 

I hate waiting! 

If I knew I'd be waiting this long I would have said no before I got attached. Something tells me God knew that from the beginning, I'm kind of thankful he didn't tell me. 

This is also the hardest I've had to fight to get her with me, I've been more tenacious then I have ever been. I feel fiercely protective already and the harder it gets the more sure I am. 

She's teaching me to trust God in a way I've never needed to before. 

In a way that meant trusting him regardless of how this turns out. 

A couple of days ago I needed that and  I had to dig me heels in. 

I'd been emailing all day, back and forth because something just was not ok with what I had read and been told and what was happening, things weren't moving at all. Something that had been set in stone had not actually been confirmed at all. I was so mad and so scared because this actually means she might not even come at all. So I just got off the phone after being told, and I was faced with more waiting and I really was not sure I could. So many times I wanted to just say no and give up. 

I felt God say as he had before "do you trust that I've got this?" 

I did but I also felt more then ever that I just wanted to give up, but I just couldn't. I just starting cleaning cos ya know that helps when your stressed. I walked up to my room to put something away and I just looked into her already set up room. The room she should already be in. 

So that's what I declared. 

I stood at her door and just cried. 

I asked God to bring her to me. 

I Thank him through my tears and asked him to help me trust him. 

I thanked him that she is safe and that someone was loving her. 

I thanked Him him for holding her in his hands when I couldn't. 

I said to him "I will remember this moment. I will remember that I choose to trust to even when it's so hard and even when it hurts" 

Trust is so hard because it's a choice and not a feeling. 

It cannot be based around getting what we want when we want it. 

It's refined in the waiting. 

It's tested over and over again. 

It's also what brings us back to God over and over again. 

I know that is this waiting season I have been holding to that trust like never before. 

So watch this space and see what happens! 

#Sheiscoming #BLove #Bestcallingever 

Forever.

It has been a year since Hillsong conference already.  It feels like it hasn’t been that long, but then also feels like so much has happened since then. 

I love conference time, I'm always excited to just be there and always, without fail, I am floored by what we are a part of.

Last year was the same, but last year was also incredibly hard for me. 

I remember not so much looking forward to conference. 

I remember feeling like I should be excited, but I was not. 

I remember the songs that we would sing in that season. 

Songs that said "oh praise His name forever more, for endless days we will sing Your praise" 

And 

"For all my days in Your shadow I will remain, oh I could stay here forever" 

I can still feel how incredibly difficult it became for me to sing out those words. 

Not because they were not true, but because they did not feel true for me in that season. 

It seemed like every song we sang had the words forever in them, every verse I read talked about it and preachers would preach and in some way my attention was drawn to it. 

 

Without going into too much irrelevant detail,

I'd gotten to a point where I was just not sure I wanted forever, at least not like it was then. 

I can so clearly remember saying to God "I do not want a forever if it's like this" 

Which is hard to admit when as Christians we look forward to living out our days with God, in his house and there is so much focus on our calling right? 

 

The thing was that from my teens I'd struggled on and off with depression and anxiety and basically just how my emotions affected the way I lived.

I had come so far with it and gotten to a point where I was master over them... well, mostly. 

Until I stepped into my calling.

From the outside I'd gotten my dream!  I'd wanted to be a foster Mum for so long and I believed, prayed and, of course, took all the steps to get there. 

The first few weeks were fine, but obviously it was a major life change and so I was stressed.

According to my Doctor, this triggered a major stress reaction in my body and made me actually, really physically ill. Basically my adrenal system, or something or other went crazy. I'd honestly never felt that sick for such a long time in my entire life. 

But this was everything I had ever wanted! I knew without a doubt that this is what I was meant to do. 

I finally had my dream! I had prayed for every single thing and detail of what I was living in, so from the outside even to my own eyes everything looked like it was going so well, and it was.

So I should have felt like that right? 

I'm furiously typing because I am still so mad about how much joy was robbed at a time which should have been filled with joy and praise. 

Instead I struggled with how I felt and I was ashamed of how I felt, so I did not talk about it and I got to conference and I was beyond done with it. I kind of had the mindset that this was going to happen every time I got stressed or something hard was going on in my world. I did not want to keep ending up in the same place over and over again. That is not the kind of forever I wanted. 

This was not at all what I wanted. Physically it was everything, but by this point the emotional cost was becoming too great. 

I struggled to just keep myself together during conference. I had stuff to do so physically it was fine, but emotionally I was unravelling at a painfully slow pace. Singing those words was like drowning in them because they felt so empty (I could not be more dramatic I know).

It got to the last night and while God had spoken to me and I'd served him "well" that week, I was almost ready to just go home. 

By a fluke I stayed and got a seat for the last worship night. 

The entire time I still had the thought that I could not do a forever if this is what it was going to be like for me. 

 

It took 4 words to completely undo me and if that's all God said the entire conference it would have been more then enough.

The songs started and I started to speak them out and it was still hard for me to believe them. 

I don't remember the exact song or moment, but I remember I was already basically crying more then I was singing. I looked around at the crowd and the band in worship and I remember God so clearly saying "This is your forever" 

It wasn’t about the lights and crowd and the hype, but the genuine love for God and being in the house of God forever serving Him. It does not seem like that much of a big deal and also probably seems obvious, but until that point I had not actually grasped it. 

My crying because it was hard to sing turned into sobbing, maybe out of thankfulness or shock or surrender. 

Because the life that I saw and did not want was not actually the life He intended for me. 

Because what He had wanted to show me was so much bigger if I'd looked to Him and not at how I felt.

 

We hear the best is yet to come on a weekly basis, if not more, but when stuff is actually really hard, do we believe that with our entire heart? 

It's not wishful thinking or being hopeful that our life will turn out ok. 

It's believing with every single part of you that God has your back and that the future He has for you is so much greater then you can ever imagine it to be. 

 

xx

1% matters.

Less then one percent. 

That's how long I got to be her Mumma. 

I remember telling God that it wasn't enough, begging Him for more time with her. 

Another Christmas because we spend her first one in hospital. 

Her first birthday, her first steps. 

But I knew that was unfair because the older she got the more she would miss me. 

That broke my heart so I wanted her to move on soon so she wouldn't miss me. 

So she wouldn't be too attached even though I knew it was too late, we were smitten from day one. 

For so long I wasn't sure when my part was done, I just nervously trusted that I would know when it was. 

It does not get easier to love with your entire self knowing that they will leave. 

The call came and my heart dropped and I felt still nervous because i did not feel done yet. 

I prayed that her new parents would love her like everyone around us had loves her, because everyone did.

Strangers stopped to comment on her. 

I prayed they would take her to house and she would grow up knowing about how Jesus loved her and how he had a plan for her. 

I prayed they would be perfect for her. 

The second they met her I knew I was done, I knew I'd done my part and I knew they were her Mum and Dad. 

Turns out that while we had been praying for them to know Jesus, they were praying the same thing about me. 

Funny how Jesus works like that. 

Funny how he answers before you ask. 

Funny how even though it looks so small it's really so incredibly big. 

1 percent is not a lot, but 1 percent matters. It makes a difference and it means something. 

So the next time you are doing something insignificant. 

Think about how He left the 99 for the 1. 

Remember that you matter. 

Mother's Day.

I remember last Mother's Day, I remember it really well. 

It was my first Mother's Day. 

I remember waking up and instead of feeling celebrated I felt the pressure to feel celebrated. 

Instead of feeling thankful I felt a burden. 

I remember crying a lot that day, so much so that I really thought I would not be able to stop. 

I remember refusing to leave the house. Because I did not feel like I could go and be loved on like the other Mums when I was not living up to expectation I had perceived was there, and It wasn't. 

Nobody expected me to have it all together but me, and I couldn't, so I stayed at home. 

I remember having two beautiful children that I could have enjoyed that day like I had many others, instead I let myself stay where I was. Feeling overwhelmed and anxious and I lost an entire day to that. 

I didn't fight the feelings or challenge the thoughts, I excused myself from the fight. 

I felt sorry for myself. 

To be honest I kind of still feel annoyed at myself for it when I think about it too much. 

I'm just being real because last Mother's Day I was anything but that. 

I wonder why we are so afraid to admit that our emotions are overtaking us?

I wonder why eventually we stop trying to fight them or challange them? 

I wonder why we let them make themselves at home in our mind? 

I wonder why we hide them away? 

This Mother's Day I woke up feeling Blessed that I can even be a Mum, that I have the privilege to Love my baby while I have her and enjoy her (even after she threw up all over me) 

I woke up thinking and feeling different not because I'm some awesome human, but because my feelings are not my master. 

Because time and time again I gave my emotions to my Master. 

When they became out of control, I gave them to the one who was in control. 

Because when they lied to me I told them the truth, and I told it over and over and over again until I believed it. 

Because I refused the accept that this is just how I feel or how I think or who I am. 

Instead I chose to fight. 

Because I choose to believe in a God who says I am worth it. 

So a year on, just one year later and I cannot imagine feeling like I did on that day. 

This year is a Happy Mothers Day! 

I hope you realise and think about how valued you are today! 

XO 

The risk of Love.

I've avoided writing about her. 

For some reason it was just a really hard concept for me to get my head around. 

Seems so easy to tell you about her now. 

She is sweet and funny and oh so very loud. 

I mean she talks all the time! 

She smiles and giggles and almost never stops moving. 

She looks for me when I call her. 

She watches people and her face lights up when they look at her. 

People stop me to say hello to her, to speak life into her. 

She's flooded with Love wherever she goes. 

And I'm captivated by her! 

I have Loved and been Loved before, but it was not until I Loved her like I do that I felt and understood how God must feel about me. 

I'm not even sure I could adequately describe it now. 

Almost like it hurts a little to think about. 

Something's that's both pure and fierce at the same time and I'm sure they should not fit together. 

Yet somehow they do. 

I've never been aware of how much risk it could involve, still, it's so worth it. 

Just like it was worth it for me. 

I get so many comments about how attached people would get, how they could not let them go, I've been warned against getting too attached as if loving her less would make it easier, as if the more I give my heart to her the more pain I'd be causing herself. 

As if it's foolish to Love her as much as a possible can. 

I guess that's a little true. 

It would have hurt less not to love, it hurts less to hold back and to stay distant. 

Yet God did not do that to me, in fact just the opposite. 

Spilling out every available part of himself and sparing nothing to make sure I could be close to him. He took the risk knowing that I could not ever match His Love for me. 

That I could not reciprocate it even if I tried. 

And It all of a sudden makes so much crazy sense to me. 

I'm worth the risk of Love. 

She's worth the risk of Love. 

 

A little on Love

A letter to my baby girl. 

I caught you looking up it me today with the biggest smile, you were in fact meant to be sleeping. 

In fact you have hardly slept all afternoon, it made you grumpy but every so often you look up and smile, makes me wonder what you are thinking. 

And I caught you looking at me the same way I look at you. 

Smitten. Captivated. In Love. 

Exactly as it should be. 

I'm in Love with that look you give me. 

In Love with the way you smile at nothing. 

I'm in Love with you high pitched coo when you are trying to talk back. 

I'm in Love with the way you play with your ear while you feed, or grab my shirt when you fall asleep in my arms. 

I'm in Love with how your cry is more of a yell. 

I'm in Love with how you sigh just before you fall asleep. 

I'm in Love with the way you follow people with your eyes and don't like to face away from the action. 

Wanting to be part of what is going on. 

I'm in Love with everything about you. 

And I do not regret it. 

The goodbye will be that much harder because of it, but your future will be that much more secure as a result of it.