Wham! It hit me like a ton of bricks, crushing my poor fragile heart. It took all the emotional strength that I could muster to finish reading to the end of the email. I had waited patiently for six months and was now being asked to wait an additional month and a half before we could move forward on a major project that I am working on.
I was very hurt by this news, but also didn’t want to let God down. I frequently tell Him that I put my trust in Him and that I give myself fully to Him, but that sure is an easy profession when things are going my way.
“Ok God, this project is completely yours. If I need to pivot with it, please let me know. Thy will be done.” I prayed as I walked away from my computer and stepped out onto the deck. It was 62*, sunny, with a light breeze, which is incredible for a Minnesota March afternoon. The robins were back and before the leaves grow back on the trees, the birds sure are loud! But so welcome. The world around me was taking a nice long bath after spending all winter frozen asleep.
Not to digress, but I HATE mud, so on days like this I am extremely grateful for my 60 foot long deck. The girls can ride their little bikes around and I can go barefoot and stay completely dry. Now back to my story…
I was sitting in the sunshine, thanking God for His many blessings as well as His mercy. Basically just loving on the Lord, feeling a supernatural calm settle over me. “Thy will be done.” My big project was in the Lord’s hands and His timing is perfect, so I have nothing to worry about. As I am praying my phone dings. I decide to ignore it for a few minutes and just bask in the glory around me. But eventually I decide it’s time to get back to work.
That disruptive ding was a text message from Abby saying that our hyperlinks to the blog were all failing. My heart sank for the second time in 20 minutes.
“Ok God, I tried to be a good girl and accept all things joyfully, but let’s stick to one problem at a time please!” I knew immediately what had happened because I was messing around with the settings moments before reading that ominous email.
I, Leah Brix, single handedly crashed our blogsite. Panicking, I tried to undue the major changes that I had made, but no matter what I did, nothing happened!
About now is when the panic set in. All our hard work down the drain just like that!
“All things work together for good.”
I desperately reached for this verse as I tried punching the crap out of that evil villain Panic. I missed him over and over, but armed with this scripture verse I eventually got him square in the nose. BAM!
Now let’s hit rewind. Abby and I have been talking about registering an actual domain name for our blog for quite a while now. I loved the idea of course, but was a little nervous about pulling the trigger. My pride (ironically) was telling me that it was prideful to have this platform. Then a second later, it would convince me that I wasn’t good enough to have a legit website name. Then another weird lie would form in my head which essentially paralyzed me from going forward with this.
If I’m being completely honest, I made a WAY bigger deal out of this than was appropriate for the situation. However, this wasn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time that I act completely irrational over a pretty small decision.
Sorry about the whiplash, but let’s jump back to my original story. I believe I left it with me standing victoriously over the body of Panic. For the second time that afternoon, I wrestled with, yet defeated my emotional monsters and reordered the situation, giving it to God.
Abby was sitting at her computer over 30 miles away, but the two of us put our heads together and were troubleshooting over the phone. Finally she suggested finally buying that dang domain name. Maybe that would be the answer we were looking for! So I pulled out the ol’ credit card and punched in the numbers. All I had left to do was hit submit, but I lost my courage again for a few seconds.
Abby was awesome. She yelled into the phone, “You can do it! Come Holy Spirit!!” So I awkwardly choked out “Come Holy Spirit!!” closed my eyes and click. BAM! Just like that we bought ourselves an official domain name- catholiccountrychronicles.com.
This story is not to brag about my fancy new website… although it was kind of fun to do 😉 but this story is about trust. No matter how many opportunities I have been presented to just trust the Lord and His timing or His providence, I struggle Every. Single. Time. You would think that eventually it would become a habit to just submit every circumstance, conversation, problem, etc. to the Lord to sort out, but I am discovering that it doesn’t get much easier.
What does get easier though, is my confidence that when I finally release the situation to God, He always blesses me abundantly. His timing is not always my timing, and His ways of doing things certainly aren’t the same way that I would do it; but it is always perfect. I hold on to this confidence when I really don't know what's ahead of me. I am finding such joy in not having to carry the emotional burden of my daily life. Thank You Jesus for releasing me from the stresses of life, so that I can live only for You, praising You in all that comes my way.
By the way… the website is working like a charm, and I have a meeting this afternoon about that big project of mine. It is starting right on time just like we had originally planned. Sometimes God asks us to wait, other times He rewards our faithfulness and expedites our plans. I am so thankful that my God is bigger than any minor first-world problem that I contend with. :)
Until next time my dear sisters in Christ,
Leah