Sunday, May 8, 2011

Lessons in Faith

Faith has always been something I have struggled with. I think it means so many different things to different people. The dictionary defines it as confidence or trust in a person or a thing. I am not a person that trusts easily, yet this is what God wants of us. Before I really began to follow Jesus, I needed to have full and utter control over everything in my life. I couldn't trust the people around me to make the right decisions for me, how on earth was I suppose to trust God? Even after I was baptized and began to live the life of a disciple of Jesus, I still could not let go of the control.

The first time I got a lesson in being faithful to God was when we were trying to have our first baby. I needed control and I took it, yet I was not trusting in God and his timing. I wanted it my way. In the end we lost four babies. The last one we lost could have killed me. This was an eye opener for me. It was the first time that my faith had really been tested and I finally surrendered to the fact that God knew better then I did. I stopped trying to control things. We were told that we could not have biological children. As devastating as this was, it also helped me surrender to God completely. We began to enjoy life again and I turned completely to God.  Eight short months later and by accident, we got pregnant  and 9 months after that I gave birth to an angel. When our daughter was 2 we decided that it might be time to have another baby. This time we left God in complete control and we were blessed with our son. God taught me to be faithful through this, it has helped me to trust in Him more then I ever thought possible.

This brings me to a second situation that I have had to be faithful and the reason I wanted to share this to begin with. About  2 months after we lost our 4th baby, we bought a house in North Bend Washington. It was our dream home and we were so excited! A little over a month after we moved it, it began to rain and it didn't let up. I had just come upstairs after working out and my dog started to bark. I rolled my eyes because I assumed that she was barking at the squirrel that had been harassing her since we moved in. I went and looked downstairs. In the five minutes it had been since I had come upstairs, our downstairs had filled with 2 feet of water. Chad saved what he could because the majority of our stuff was still downstairs. We loaded our pets and a few precious items into our car and we left our house, not  foreseeing the nightmare ahead of us. Since our first flood the house has flooded almost ever year. Some years it has flooded multiple times. In the last 6 months, it has flood three times. We were very forunate to be able to buy another house in Montana, but we could not sell the house in North Bend so we rented it out and began to pray that God would help us sell it to the county. Weeks turned into months and months turned into years and there was no sign that the house would be bought. We had oppurtunities that fell through. We couldn't sell it and we could no longer rent it. We couldn't make the payments anymore. We left it to God. We had one grant that would have bought the house as a short sale, but the bank wouldn't accept it. We had one last grant to apply for and it was our last hope. If this didn't go through we would foreclose and the home could be sold to another unsuspecting family. We asked God to make this grant go through. In Mathew 17:20 it says:

He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

We believed and it happened! We sold our house on the day that we needed to so that the house would not be auctioned. No one ever has to live in that house again.  I kept faith and trusted through this situation like I never had before. I still had my moments of anxiety, but I was able to overcome. When we trust completely in God and his plan for us, we will be blessed!

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