Holy confidence

With the encouragement of some women who have been discipling me the last couple years, I have come up with a new word each January.  The word captures and holds what I sense God asking me to live into in a new way for the upcoming year.  Last year my words were Holy Confidence and Fun.  

Fun ..... well, I got pregnant ..... that's fun ... most of the time!  Many days spent miserably sick and not feeling FUN, but we were excited to journey into 2014 as a family of five.  I started taking a dance class just for FUN.  I went to see more movies and had more time with girlfriends. I just felt called to live less seriously.  I did okay with that one.

Holy Confidence .......I was tired of relying on my performance, acceptance from others, and successes for confidence.  As we know, that confidence is always fleeting.  I knew God had a different way for me to live and move and breathe - in HIM.  HIM in me.  Holy confidence is a soul knowing place.  Deep in us we begin to BELIEVE all the things we have known in our minds.  It's a shift from head to heart.  It is an experience of GRACE as we step out in faith, and trust Jesus to find his promises are true.  I don't love the word, "test", but it's really what happens when we step out in radical trust and find him faithful to offer peace and joy in the midst of hardship.   His love never fails.  We realize his faithfulness is true and real and will hold us.  I had glimpses of this new way, but would easily slip into old ways of striving, performing, and controlling.  I continued to fight for this WORD, Holy Confidence,  but found myself fighting all the wrong fights.  I wrote this at one point about halfway through 2013.. 

I just get caught up fighting the wrong fight.  Fighting to figure it all out or fighting for control.  I fight to be good enough or avoid the vulnerability I so desperately want and need.  Fighting to be "okay" when maybe God just wants me to "not be okay" and to trust him.  

I fight to save myself. 

But .... the fight is really to accept my neediness and weakness and allow my savior to save me.  The fight is actually just to remain.  *To consent to be who he has made me and remain where he has placed me.*  The fight is to believe truth, to choose life not death, moment by moment.  The fight is to agree with HIM, and not the wickedness of my flesh or the torment of the lies of the enemy of my soul.  The fight is to choose weakness, and trust this upside down kingdom.  The fight is to willingly FALL into his loving arms .... into his love, acceptance, and grace.  It is to courageously bring the lame, broken, and wounded parts of myself honestly before him to receive his healing.  The fight is to surrender because He is able.  Here lies the HOLY CONFIDENCE he longs to give.  Here lies LIFE.
 *quote by Andrew Murray

Well, here lies 2014 looking nothing like I had hoped or planned for.  Yet I have a new Holy Confidence in my Jesus.  It came in an unexpected way; in a set of circumstances that the evil one would have loved to use to destroy me and my family.  Our Kate being born silently into this world.  Here I find myself with no fight left, only the choice to surrender and BELIEVE what my God says in His word is true.   

I am believing and seeing that ....

His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  

He does comfort those who mourn. 

It is better to enter the house of mourning than the house of feasting.

He is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

He is the Prince of peace.

His mercies are new every morning.

Believing these truths, and the many others I find in his word, in faith, is the ONLY fight.  And it is the fight that has been saving my life.  This is HOLY confidence that cannot be shaken.  Do I live perfectly in this place?  Of course not .... but I KNOW it now.  I know it in a soul knowing place.  I know where I want to return - to HIM, always.  I am learning this new way; and learning is always a process.   I thank you Jesus for allowing this good to come from my sweet sweet girl.  This is just ONE GOOD THING He is giving in this season.

It is hard to reconcile the good that comes, with the loss that I have experienced.  I reconcile it by knowing these things are just glimpses of redemption.  Wow.  I am so thankful to love and serve a redeeming God.  Any good that comes will NEVER erase the pain in my heart.  It eases it for a bit.  This is a gift of grace that I am learning to appreciate ...... a little reprieve from the heaviness.  But at the end of the day, she will be apart from me all of my days on earth and that makes me ache in my bones.   I eagerly await full redemption on the day I see her face to face .....and for now, I will do my best to fight the "right fight".  To remain with Him and experience Holy Confidence as I believe his promises..... such as this one:

"I pray that God, the source of all hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him.  Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit."   - Romans 15:13 

And this one:
 
"You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever."  - Psalm 30:11-12

  
 I give thanks to you, Lord.  My heart will sing a new song, and I will dance again.