Hope

Thinking sometimes in life, you're drowning, all you can see is the water under you, there seems to be no hope, just a struggle to keep from being consummed.  A feeling that you are never enough and there are no other options.  The terror exaggerates all your movements rendering them useless and exhausting. In those moments where there is just you and death something miraculous can be born, if you call on God.  He calms your heart to stillness and lifts your head to look up to see him.  In that moment you realize there are other options.  There IS hope, there always was hope, you just refused to see it.  By stepping out of your fear and turning to face it, it's powerful grip is loosened.  By willing to honestly see the lesson the fear is there to teach you and being accountable for it, you are given the gift of Godly inspired creativity to transform the crisis into something new.  As you shift to hope and freedom, you find them and can take positive, productive action and let go of the need to control the end result. So much of our challenges in life are transformed by how we see them. Where you look, what you focus on, that's where you're headed.  That's what will fill your life.  There is always hope if you'll see it.    

Transformational Power of Faith

   Faith, does anyone believe that actually means anything these days?  That's akin to enjoying the biblical story of Moses and it's message, but feeling that's completely impossible today.  If it were, there definitely would be headlines declaring the incredible movement of a mountain to another location, someone would have caught on video a river miraculously parting in two, medical records of someone coming back from the dead days later.  Faith currently, is just hoping to make it through each month, praying for that little extra cash to cover the deficit.  Sincere prayers for healing when a loved one is sick.  Usually as a plea for rescue in life's circumstances.  That is what I believed faith was, wanting hard enough for something to happen.  Pleading for life's circumstances to be different than they were.  Wanting different results than what I was getting.  And I have a life's string of answered prayers, but also much suffering to accompany it.  
   I have been blessed, beyond measure to have my eyes and mind opened to another way of experiencing faith.  Of the power it has to really call forth something greater within and transform it and then change life's outer circumstances. 
   Faith is a verb, an action.  Faith is seen in an Eagle taking flight.  His wings outstretched, coasting on unseen rivers of God's breath, swaying to and fro, sometimes beating furiously to reclaim the current.  Consciously being in the moment, surrendering to the force and direction of the elements, but ready to  change in a moment as needed.  That to me is a clearer representation of faith. 
    When I feel a call to something or feel change needs to happen I first go to God and I talk to Him about it.  Then I clear my resistance to getting any possible answer.  I have to be willing to be told no or open to new possible directions.  After I receive an answer, it sometimes feels overwhelming because how can I do what he expects of me.  Often it seems like way more than I am capable of tackling and calls on more than I am.  I ask for His help and then I face it.  It often feels like facing Goliath head on, intimidating and terrifying, but as I step out of fear he meets me.  It's like looking into a bottomless chasm, knowing God wants you on the other side, but you see no way of getting there.  And he says step forward and you just know when you do, you will surely plummet to your death.  But somewhere within you know that you want to trust that voice and somehow it will be okay.  So you step forward, without expectation as to how it will happen.   Your first wavering step is greeted only by emptiness, when suddenly your foot is caught and held fast, as is your next step.  But it is nothing compared to the feeling of strength and companionship that fills your body and the feeling that God is right there with you.  You are in flight on unseen currents that you can feel, but do not fully comprehend. 
   Faith is the means by which we grow into something greater than we are.  We experience and see parts of ourselves that we never knew existed and we come to know God in a new way as we see Him within ourselves.  And faith is universal, know matter how good you get at it, you never master it, you don't ever get to arrive, you just get to dig deeper within and create greater good.  Faith is the vehicle God has to make us as He is, to bring us face to face with Him.  To help us love and let go of smaller, limited versions of ourselves.  To experience real freedom.  Freedom is knowing you can tackle anything that comes your way (through Him) and that you can create your own happiness while doing it, no matter what the circumstance.   Faith is the means to transform us into the miraculous creation  God sees in us.