Necessary Endings

Sometimes I feel like a newborn baby..so helpless, just waiting for someone to scoop me up, swaddle me, and hum softly to me.

There are days where I want to feel that safe and secure; embraced by someone, anyone who cares and loves me.

When I feel that way, I think of babies. I think of how carefully they are held, cherished, and loved.

They are so new, untarnished, and full of hope.

Babies don't know what hopelessness feels like because their needs are constantly met. When they cry for something, the parent often comes and meets their needs.

There are days where I feel my needs aren't always met. There are days where I am filled with hopelessness, and I just want to be swaddled, and loved.

There are days where I am hostile and unkind, but in those moments I long for love. I long for hope. I want someone to scoop me up and tell me it's all going to work out.

My life right now is chaotic, unknown, and this season my husband and I are in is very new, scary, and hard. Church planting is hard, and raising support is hard. It's so easy for me to worry about not being able to pay the bills. It amazes me how much stress finances can cause. There are days where I am not loving toward my husband, and it is not because of something he did or didn't do, it all goes back to wondering how we are going to make it, and when God is going to open a door to provide and take the weight off of my chest that I have felt for months.

The longer it takes to raise support, the more I question myself. Is our support not raised because I'm not working hard enough? Is it because my heart gets angry and upset when things are uncertain? Am I a bad wife? Am I a good leader? Am I not capable of raising support? Why is this taking so long? Is God teaching me patience? Is he testing me to see how much stress I can bear?

I have to remember to pause, take a deep breath, and move forward. My fear sometimes gets me stuck. It keeps me from moving forward and running toward God.

How do you move forward? How do you push on when you are in a tough season? Do you have people to encourage you, and that you can lean on? Do you have hope? Are you afraid to end something in order to have a new beginning?