Failure or Faith
It’s been a while...I know. It’s been a really interesting season, and now the whole world is in an unprecedented season and everything feels really uncertain...but when God prompts, I share.
As you may have seen on social media, I’m in the process of buying a home, my first home, and when I signed my contract it was just a concrete slab, today it has a roof, some studs and plumbing, it’s still very much a work in progress. The pile of mud that's supposed to be my yard, the construction debris scattered everywhere, the lingering hope that it will one day actually become a home, my home. It has me in a whirlwind of “what-if”, what if I don’t actually secure financing and someone else gets to move into it, what if COVID-19 shuts the company down, what if I made a huge mistake….it’s reminiscent of this past season of my life.
What if I failed...
It’s almost been 2 years since I’ve moved back stateside and I haven’t really talked about why it was such a hard season, but if I’m being real, it's because I felt like I had made a huge mistake and moved back on false faith. I felt like maybe I was played a fool and I should have just stayed. If you’ve been around you know when it all came crashing down, and I haven’t been keen to talk about it because it was honestly, quite embarrassing. I was dating a guy, one that I believed was it (I prayed that God would let the next guy be the one...and it was pretty much a God thing...so), we were dating long-distance and it seemed like everything was going well. I felt like he was a gift from the Lord, I had honestly never felt so sure...so you can imagine when it ended it hurt, deep. Yeah I was mad at him, but more so I was mad at God. I felt like a fool, I decided to move back on faith that my story was going to play out one way, it felt like God was leading me in this way and I decided in faith to do the scary thing. I immediately started to doubt that maybe I was wrong and God has let me down, it was hard.
The first year was not great, jobs didn’t happen, friendships were hard to navigate, ministries I loved burned me, my ex was in my everyday life like a constant reminder to me that I was an idiot. It sucked. I was mad at God for letting me believe one thing and then leading me astray.
So, I decided it was time to go back. Move back to Thailand, and everything would be made right, I could just get up out of this. I prayed about it and decided why not, so I contacted my friends Thailand to let them know I was considering it. I prayed every day for a big neon sign...and one day I got it, in the form of another big, fat, painful “NO”, the ministry didn’t have a place for me. I’m not gonna lie, I wined about it for like a hot minute but then I decided this was my confirmation that maybe I wasn’t just a dumb girl in love, maybe I really was supposed to be here. And that's when it all changed. I decided to stay regardless of my circumstances and what better way to put down roots than buying a couch I’d been eyeing and deciding to go back to school to get my masters...and then of course buying a house, my first house, and do it alone. I very quickly realized I wasn’t alone though, God was redeeming it, all of it.
So my life, it's been kinda like a construction zone, a mess, but I still have hope that one day it will be beautiful and it will all make sense. The mud will become grass, the boards will be walls, the wires will all be hidden and the house will stand, it will become a home to be lived in and shared. The house will one day be filled with friends who have become like family where love and hospitality will be shared...and one thing I’ve learned, if it doesn't work out like I hope it will, it will be ok and God can redeem even that.
So I share this for the girl who wants to do the thing, who’s scared she will fail, or what people will think...its ok honey, even if it feels like failure, it just may be exactly what God has had in store for you the whole time. All things, even this, can be used for His glory and our story doesn’t have to be failure, it can be faith.
If this is you…I’m here for you and I want to hear your story, text me, leave me a comment, shoot me an email.
If it’s not you….I want you to know the message of this is not about the hurt…ITS THE REDEMPTION…and if you missed that read it again with those goggles.