A New Thing: Part 2 Streams in the Wasteland

If you missed part one of the series you can click here to get caught up.

So to re-cap, I got my Life Coaching certification through Light University and I started coaching.  Which is great because I love doing it, I love encouraging, and I love coaching. I just love it!

However, at some point I realized that I should probably merge my professional life with my online life so that I could use my blog as an extension of my coaching. And I felt that the Lord wanted me to expand so that I would be able to not only coach in person here in the Bay Area but virtually as well.

So a web/blog site re-model was in order, right? Simple.

No, not so simple. I realized that while I was OK with casually blogging about my family and homeschooling, etc., it was an entirely different animal to incorporate coaching and trying to impart wisdom virtually via this site.

All of a sudden, fear crept into my heart. It didn’t matter that you could already Google me and find out all kinds of crazy things about me online, the decision to basically go live and have my domain be attached to “Christian” Life coaching was terrifying. Because essentially I was putting myself professionally in a place where I would be a representative of Christ. That is was scary.

And then I read Anything by Jennie Allen. And it was one of those books that changed my life. Seriously don’t read it unless you’re ready to re-think your thinking and possibly make some major life changes.

And so that’s about when I had a crazy crisis of faith.

In her book Jennie asks “If God is real and we are going to live with him forever, shouldn’t he be the only thing”

Oh, for the love. . .

So she and her husband ended up praying “God we will do anything. Anything.”

In her words:

God had been opening our eyes to how precious our temporary lives were and how numbly we were moving through them.

We were over it. We were over building our lives. We were over houses and cars and cute Christmas cards. We wanted something; we couldn’t put our finger on it. It was burning in us. We had loved so many other things more than God.

We were ready to do anything.

If God is real. I had been feeling pretty confident that He was up until a few months ago. But things are changing friends. Crazy things are going on in the world. I’m not going to get political but I started reading things in the news and seeing things that made me seriously wonder.

Not so much if God was real but more like “does God care”?

Does God care what my beliefs are? Because even among Christians there is so much open to interpretation that I started to wonder if it was OK to just “believe” whatever you want.

Does He care how I raise my family? Does He care how I treat my husband? Does He care about my moral, social, or political views?

And I found myself standing out in the desert. Unsure of anything . But desperately thirsting for Him.

I was in a “funk” for several weeks.

I cried and I felt angry and lost and I asked my husband, do you think God cares?

And my sweet man, so wise said he was sure that He does.

But still I prayed, I begged God to show me He was real.

Because if God is real and He DOES care then EVERYTHING matters. And EVERYTHING is about Him.

And like Jennie and her husband I too wanted to pray “Lord, I will do ANYTHING”.

And because He is kind and gentle and patient with me even when I doubt. He did show me He is real in very soft ways.

He gave me little sips of water  . . .

He allowed others to speak life into me

He reminded me of His faithfulness

He opened doors

He showed up in the most unexpected places like by allowing my sweet son to experience His presence at camp without my even asking or praying about it.

And if it isn’t the Holy Spirit the can flood a teenage boy’s heart allowing him to experience the beauty of forgiveness and grace so much that it moves him to tears, then I don’t know what it is.

So I’m praying the anything prayer and really I want my “anything” to be EVERYTHING but right now “anything” for me is coaching. It’s stepping out in faith and leaving fear behind.

It’s encouraging women to live confidently, victoriously and purposely firmly planted in their identities in Christ and living out the words of His promises in their lives.

It’s still early on this journey but He’s already made a way in the wilderness and provides streams in the wasteland. He is doing a new thing and it is so good.