I am on a faith journey right now…One that is both familiar and unfamiliar to me.  It really started on a Friday in August of 2016 when something happened that added to all the other burdens of the week and I felt like my world was falling apart. I was already dealing with so much and this one thing felt like the thing that was going to break me. I actually spoke these words, “God I know I am a strong woman but just how strong do You think I am???  I am not sure that I have the strength for this storm.”

I literally cried until I threw up and I spent hours on the phone with those closest to me.  I wanted to crawl into my bed and sleep the weekend away.  I wanted to pretend nothing wrong was happening.  I wanted to have the escape that sleep can sometimes bring.

God had other plans for me.

Very early the next morning I felt God waking me up and telling me to go for a walk.  He literally was trying to pull me outside…I wrestled with it for awhile, being the stubborn person that I am.  I did not want to get out of bed and I certainly did not want to go for a walk!  I mean the sun was barely up and I had a pity party to attend. The urge to get up and get outside to walk would not leave me so I said, “Ok God…I don’t know what good it will do but I will go!”

My friends that first walk with God that day has meant everything to me……it was the start of something great, and something hard, and something painful, and something full of joy!  I walked for an hour just crying out loud to God about every hurt I was experiencing.  That first walk was full of tears, sobs, moans, yells, and quiet whispers to God. I asked so many questions, I told Him all my fears and hurts, I began to rely on Him again in a way I hadn’t in a very long time.  See I thought I was close in my walk with Him but I realized that day that I had stumbled.  I had stopped living for HIM and had just been existing.  I had put others above God.  I let others define my happiness and my mood for each day.  I was pouring everything I could into every relationship but the one that mattered most.  And in the middle of it all, I was nowhere to be found.  Sandy had ceased to exist.  God knows exactly how to get my attention and it took what I thought was my world falling apart to wake me up.  During that walk, I realized that I no longer loved anything about me.  I didn’t like the way I looked, the way I felt, the fact that I was not confident anymore, that I had no real direction for my life. I was getting really close to being alone with a person that I didn’t know anymore, a person I didn’t even like and that truth hurt.  I was literally a mess and unhappy and had been for much longer than I realized.

Did this one walk completely heal me??  No.

Did it answer all my questions?? Not even close. 

What it did do is make me realize that no, I wasn’t strong enough for this storm, but I didn’t have to be because God was, and it is in Him that I find my strength. This walk was just the beginning of the journey that would take me through a roller coaster of emotions daily.  This walk was the beginning of my Waiting on God, of my relying completely on Him, of Him building a FAITH in me that moved MOUNTAINS, of finding a true peace in the midst of the storm…….and I am so thankful to God for pulling me outside to walk and talk with HIM!

What do you need to talk over with the Lord?  Don’t wait another day!  It’s time to stop existing and time to start living for Him!