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When You Must Walk Through Life-Stirring Change

in (In)Courage· Change· Courage· Faith in Action

I swivel in my office chair, wrap my hands around my chai latte, and think to myself, “Now, if I could only wrap my head around this writing project due soon . . .” I move up to my desk and tap tap tap a couple sentences on my trusty laptop, then look up to stare outside the window. Tap, tap, tap, prop my chin up with my hand, and look outside again. I can’t help it, really. I find comfort in its familiar summer view: bluebirds alighting off pines, kitties chasing grasshoppers, containers spilling geraniums.

When I look out a window, I usually see hope looking back in. I see hope and a way to enter into that hope.

Since January, our family has experienced one change after another. Some have been good ones and right on schedule — a celebratory part of our family’s story. Some have been unexpected and not asked for — no ma’am. Both have shaken and stirred this season like a fast-moving storm to the sea, and sometimes it all makes this 40-something mama feel mighty seasick.

I’ve never experienced a nor’easter, a storm that typically brings strong winds, heavy precipitation, rough seas, and coastal flooding to the Northeast region of our country, but you can bet I’ve experienced one figuratively. You know of what I speak. You get one challenge sent your way, and you’re holding on just fine. But then another smacks right into you, and it’s just too much. The sudden job loss and the diagnosis out of nowhere. The discovered secret and the news of a hike in rent. The breakdown of that relationship and the breakdown of the family car. The letter of rejection and the awareness of public scrutiny. It’s all too much for this day, this week, this season. So, when you need to do that productive thing — because other parts of life keep moving right along — you find yourself staring out the window. Again.

A while back, I came across these verses of Scripture, and they snapped me to attention from my window staring:

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
John 5:2-4 (NKJV)

It’s fascinating that the waters had to be stirred up for someone to be healed within them. Not only that, but those who entered into the stirred-up waters only did so because they had faith the healing would come.

Sometimes change is very much that which stirs up the waters, isn’t it? The question for you and I to answer is this: Do we have faith to believe that even though the calm has been disturbed, healing comes when we step into change rather than stay away from it?

Can we accept that if God is asking us to walk through very life-stirring changes, it’s because doing so will bring healing to us in one way or another?

Join me here at (in)courage for the rest.

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Filed Under: (In)Courage, Change, Courage, Faith in Action

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This week brought to you by family heart-to-hearts This week brought to you by family heart-to-hearts around the fireplace, tulips on the table, and my first trip of the year to the garden store. ⁠⁠
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Never underestimate the ministry of flowers for you and your family. ⁠⁠
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"Home is never simply a threshold you cross. It is a place you make and a place that might make—or unmake—you. In this halfway space, we would begin to learn the costs of stepping into the role God first gave in a garden: to be, like Adam and Eve, the makers and caretakers of a particular place." ⁠⁠
~Christie Purifoy (@christiepurifoy), in her stellar book Placemaker ⁠⁠
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#backroadstobelonging
Holler if you're a fellow expert at coming up with Holler if you're a fellow expert at coming up with worst-case scenarios and making plans to divert them. ⁠⁠ 📣
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In this particular case, I thought I had foreseen every possible problem. I took measures to ensure the best possible outcome. I’m not talking about anything outlandish or expensive. Rather, I used good ol’ hard work and productivity to take care of things responsibly.⁠⁠
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And then came the turn of events only God saw coming, and all my forethought and “responsible planning” didn’t amount to a hill of beans. I didn't asked for or want this outcome, but it was what I had.⁠⁠
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Yeah, it's easier for me to daily assess the risk of doing something than to lean into trust.⁠⁠
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I write more about this at my second online writing home, @incourage. Visit the link in my profile to read more. 💛
I belong where it will snow in April (and May!), b I belong where it will snow in April (and May!), but where spring always comes, eventually. ⁠⁠
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Where do you belong today?⁠⁠
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#whereIbelongWednesday
Remember my post from a few weeks ago about our fr Remember my post from a few weeks ago about our friend Ryan, a USAF vet, who lost all all feeling and control from mid chest down due to a sudden spinal stroke?⁠⁠
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This is his wife, Rebecca, and she is one of my dearest friends in the whole wide world.⁠⁠
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Sometimes when a change comes that turns our world upside down, God works through others to turn it right side up again.⁠⁠
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This gal has surely been a turn-the-world-right-side-up gal in my life, and now I'd love it if *we* could help do the same for her.⁠⁠
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As Ryan undergoes physical therapy and rehab in the spinal cord unit of the VA hospital in Denver, we would like to help Ryan and Rebecca defray the many costs not covered by insurance following this spinal stroke, such as:⁠⁠
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▫️Outfitting Ryan and Rebecca’s home for needs regarding Ryan’s limited mobility.⁠⁠
▫️An outfitted vehicle that’s wheelchair accessible.⁠⁠
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These needs and several more are on Ryan and Rebecca's own dime, and they cost a shockingly WHOLE LOTTA DIMES. ⁠⁠
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If you're interested in helping with these needs and/or sharing about it with your people, please check out the link to our fundraiser in my profile.⁠⁠☑️
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Swipe to see a pic of Ryan and Rebecca and a pic of the GoFundMe page.⁠⁠
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And on behalf of Ryan and Rebecca, thank you for your continued prayers!⁠⁠❤️
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