Perseverance

     Confession: This morning's sermon at church rocked my world...and I can probably say that my world wasn't the only one. *I probably don't even have to mention that I cried...because if you've learned ONE thing from this blog...it's that I cry. A lot.* Anywho, we've done a series called Harvest these past few weeks discussing obedience, generosity, and perseverance. Today our pastor talked about perseverance...more specifically, the enemies of perseverance...and selfishly, I felt like he was talking directly to me. Here were the 3 enemies of perseverance that our pastor shared:

     1. Fear- giving up before we even start, fear will hold you back to a life of nothing
          Right off the bat, enemy #1 shook me to my core. You see, we are in the baby stages of the adoption process. Baby, beginning stages. And the journey is going to be long. We know that. It's going to be emotional. We know that. It's going to be financially exhausting. We know that. And despite knowing all of "that," I've still battled fears for the last few days about how in the WORLD we expect this adoption to happen. Thoughts like "What were we thinking?!" creep in and out of my head. Couple that creeping thought with people's reactions when they hear what the international adoption price tag is these days. My fear grows a little more. You can see the look of shock in their eyes when you tell them $40,000 will grow your family. You go a step further and convince yourself they're wondering the same thing that you've often asked yourself. How in the WORLD are we going to pull this off? And these thoughts make me think about giving up. They make me want to give up before we've even started. But God reminds me these thoughts are Satan trying to inch in on the fears I have. Satan wants to pile these self-induced fears into an all-consuming  and paralyzing "I wanna run the other way" fear. The kind of fear that takes you out of the game before you even start.
          So I proceeded to write that second part of my note...."fear will hold you back to a life of nothing." And back on the roller coaster I go as I begin to tear up just THINKING about not following our hearts and His calling to grow our family through adoption. To let fear win and to be left with nothing. Left with nothing but the void and ache in my heart...well that emptiness makes me want to sprint back in the direction of our son or daughter and not ever look back. Fear is with the flesh. Perseverance is with the Lord.

     2. Failure- I didn't write any notes beside this enemy because I know there will be failures in these next few years. Recently, Eric and I experienced a shared failure in our lives...that quite frankly turned out to be a huge blessing. It didn't make a lot of sense at the time and we were discouraged and a little hopeless, but God allowed this failure to happen for a reason. A good reason. Admittedly,  we're still working through some of those discouraging feelings, but our prayer is that we'll continue to find peace and see Him in all our future failures throughout this journey.

     3. Fatigue- Again...piercing words into my soul. God KNEW the thoughts that have been racing inside my head so this enemy didn't need any notes either. But fatigue is going to be a big one. For example, we'll probably begin our home study in the next couple of months (only because some other things have to be approved before we can begin). And we've heard that the home study is pretty much like a full-time job. So naturally, we've heard that fatigue will be yet another enemy in this process. But remember what the sermon was about? Perseverance! So much hope can be found when we let God lead us and when we submit to His will for our lives.

     Our pastor ended his message on Perseverance with this video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk  I'll be honest, I spent the first few seconds watching this video, wondering how he was going to tie this in to the sermon. But as you watch for a minute or so...you see that the dancing becomes contagious and people begin running over to join in! Here was our pastor's point. That lone guy? That's Jesus. {Hammer. Nail. Wow.} You see, dancing to the rhythm of Jesus isn't the "norm" in this world. It's not always something that feels natural to us. But as we begin to dance to His rhythm and not our own...it pulls us in. Sure it may feel funny and fearful when you first start out and you're the only one. But then you stay...and you see that there's freedom in this dance and in this rhythm. And then you're joined by a few others who also begin dancing. And then a few more. And before you know it, there's a movement of followers...all dancing in this same rhythm...with freedom and without fear. Friends, we can't quit living to the rhythms of God. We have to keep to the beat of the Almighty Drummer and persevere. Amen.