For Dawn

and anyone else who feels like my faith and my strength in this situation are admirable, but unattainable. Please, please, please read this entry in it's entirety. Read it a dozen times if you need to. Know that every single word is true and real and just for you.

First things first, you can have this kind of faith and strength. But it doesn't come overnight. You know that saying, "God will never give you more than you can handle?" It's bull-crap. It's not true. In fact, the opposite is true. He's going to put things in your life that you can't handle all the time. Look at it this way:

Pretend that you went to kindergarten when you were five years old, and the teacher knew that you could only handle playing with toys. Trying to teach you numbers, letters, or colors would be pointless, because that would push you. That would challenge you. That would be more than you could handle. So you went all the way through kindergarten playing with toys. The next year, you went to first grade, and again, the teacher only helped you play with toys, because that's all you had ever done...that's all you could handle on your own. If she gave you numbers, letters, or colors, you would simply chew on the paper or stare blankly at the paper. You couldn't handle learning your letters, numbers, and colors on your own. So she didn't challenge you. She didn't give you more than you could handle. She just let you play with the dolls and the blocks and the trucks all day.

On and on it went until the day you were 18 and you graduated high school. Your parents said, "Alright, Dawn, you've been through public education. You know how to play with toys. Now it's time to move out into the real world and begin your own life."

Obviously, you would be completely and utterly unprepared for life. Even if you lived with your parents for the rest of your life...what kind of life would that be?

Instead, in school, your teachers CONSTANTLY challenged you. They constantly presented you with challenges and material that you couldn't handle on your own. Letters and numbers were completely overwhelming in kindergarten. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division kept you at the dinner table, studying, when you were in elementary school. Balancing chemical equations caused you hours of frustration (and, if you were like me, even tears) in high school. And college...good gracious...the word, "FINALS", still makes my palms sweat the slightest bit.

But here's the secret: You never had to do it alone. You never had to do it with only the strength you possessed. Your teachers (if they were worth their weight in salt) were there to teach you, to help you, to share their knowledge and strength in the subject. And, one by one, you tackled each subject and got stronger in each area. No matter who you are or what level of education you have attained, I can say with confidence that you are farther down the road of knowledge than you were the day you started kindergarten. Why? Because you can read this blog entry. :)

It is the exact same way with God and faith. The Bible says that we all start out as babies in faith. Just like babies can only drink milk, we can only hand small things of faith. Now, this is interesting to me.

The first part of faith is believing in a god. Correct? So, that's the first step to being a baby in faith. Well, HELLO!! How in the world is that a small thing? It takes a TON of faith to believe in God. There are very intelligent people out there, people who are very STRONG in intellect, who don't even have enough faith to believe in a god. Quite frankly, if you have mastered that step, the step of believing in God, then it's only going to get more challenging from there on.

The best thing, though, is that we never, ever, ever, ever, EVER have to do it on our own. God has told us that He left a guiding force here on Earth, a force called the Holy Spirit. God is certainly seperated from us up in Heaven, but He has left a part of himself here for us to reach out to. Aside from that, God has millions of followers all over the world who are just waiting...just waiting...to step alongside you and walk the road with you. Everytime you fall down or find yourself struggling to have faith, one of us will be there to kneel down beside you and help you back up again.

Why? Because we have ALL been there. Every single one of us has been at a place where we did NOT have the strength to display the faith that was required of us. We know what it's like, and we can't wait to help you through it...because we know how good it is on the other side.

And that won't ever stop. The falling will never stop. We will constantly be faced with challenges that help us learn more about God and grow in our faith.

This journey of faith is not easy for me. It's simply that I've turned *away* from God enough times to know that it doesn't work. It always ends up really, really, really crappy. I would use the cuss word, but I know that would irritate my mother who reads this blog. :) But it's true: When I try to handle the challenges without leaning on God, things go BAD. They go really bad. I end up depressed, angry, bitter, sad, and simply without hope.

I've been there often enough that I don't wanna go back. I want to continue to lean on God. I want Him to help me through this.

There is a very simple prayer that I prayed Wednesday night, June 18, 2007 at 11:40 p.m. I had just been told (9 hours earlier) that my water had broken again, and I probably only had a 1 percent (if not less) chance that my baby would live long enough to come home with me. You have no idea what that did to me.

I truly can't express in words how badly I want this little boy. And to know that he's a boy. Oh how strongly I yearn for him to come home in my arms. Oh how terribly my heart aches to imagine living life without him.

Oh, how ANGRY it makes me that there's even a possibility that God would give me a child and then take him away. It wouldn't be the first time. I just don't understand it.

But I do KNOW this:

God has really good plans for me. I know it, because I've already seen it. I look at all of the hard things I've been through in my life, and I realize how much WORSE they could have been, if God hadn't been guiding me through it.

I'll be very, very, very honest with you. If God hadn't been at my side throughout my life, I probably would not be alive today. I have been in desperate, scary places where I didn't even think I wanted to live anymore, but God spared me. He put people (a person) in my life to show me how much He loved me. He whispered to me in the dark scary places, pushing me on, pushing me forward.

I don't wanna go back there again, so I prayed this prayer, almost word for word:

"God, if something bad happens, if you decide to take Burke away from me, I'm gonna be really really angry. It's going to hurt so bad that I don't know how I'm going to go on. I'm going to be really confused, and I'm going to want to run. That's what I always do when I'm hurt or angry or mad. I run. I run from You. I run from Mike. I run from friends. I close myself off. I won't receive hugs. I won't receive prayers. It's a defense mechanism. God, if you allow me to go through a hurt, I'm going to want to run away from You, and I'm probably going to try really hard. But here's my real desire God. Right now, while I'm not angry, and while I'm not hurt, I want you to know the truth that's not clouded by emotions: I love You. I trust You. I want You in my life. I want to live for You. So, if it happens, God, if you take Burke away from me...will you do me favor? Take those huge, strong, all-powerful arms, and wrap them around me. Just like a screaming little toddler throwing a tantrum...Grab me and hold me close to you. Fight with me. Fight for me. Hold me close, even as I scream and wriggle and cry and try to run. Just hold me. Hold me tight. I'm probably going to say mean things to you. I'm probably going to rebel and try to hurt you, but I know you can handle it. I know you can handle me. You created me. So I'm giving you permission, God. I'm giving you permission to hold me against my will at that point. Don't let me run away from you. Hold me until I have calmed down...until I am a whimpering, sobbing mess in your lap. And then love me. Remind me that You have good plans for me. That you are still there. You are still in control. Through it all, you will not let go. Oh no, you'll never let go. Through the calm and through the storm, you'll never let go of me. Amen."

You see, God has promised that He will not force us to be with Him. He's not interested in little robots. He's interested in people who will love Him, serve Him, and follow Him because they WANT to. Not because they HAVE to. So He has promised that He will never force us to come to Him.

However, He will do what we ask, if it's in His will, if it's something that pleases Him. And I believe that staying close to Him is something He wills for my life...something He wants from me. So, I have given him permission to go against my emotional will, if I try to run. Because that's all emotions. It's all anger and bitterness and hurt and sadness and confusion and ... it's not Truth. It's Emotion.

My Truth is that I want to live for God. I want to live for Christ. No matter what I go through, I want Him to be the biggest part of my life. So I give Him permission to hold me against my will, if that's what it comes to at some point. I give Him permission to pursue me with passion.

I have given Him permission to draw me close and keep me near. That doesn't take strength. That takes weakness. Realizing that I am far too weak to handle this on my own, and I need Him. I need Him. It's the only way I'll ever survive.

And you can do that, too. He loves you just as much as He loves me. He sent His Son for all of us. We just have to accept it. So see? I'm not different from you at all. I'm not more capable than you at all. I've just made a choice to admit that I'm really weak. I've made a choice to admit that I can't do it. So I'm going to let Him.

(((HUGS))) I promise. One day, I'm going to try to meet all of you who are e-mailing and commenting in person. I'm going to wrap my arms around you and squeeze until you can only barely breathe. I'm going to try to show you how much Christ loves you by showing you how much I love you.

Today, God, reach out to Dawn and anyone else who's feeling similar to her.  Reach out to anyone who doesn't think they have the strength or the faith to trust You.  Show them your glory.  Show them how good You are.  And open their hearts.  Motivate them to search for You, because You are worth finding.  Amen.