I'm 4 weeks away from finishing (well almost finishing...I have one more class in the spring) and completing the degree I started four years ago. I sat here on the couch tonight and told Jim I just don't have the focus or energy to complete this and I don't want to put all my energy in this for the next month because I'm tired...but then as soon as I said that I quickly said out loud...Nope, I can do this...just a little more time and my payoff is near! When I think about that and running the "race" my mind jumps to the obvious verse....I have fought the fight I have finished the race. It's what my sisters and I were raised always being told (fight the good fight run the race), it's what is on my dad's grave stone, it's what Jim and I live by and what we teach our girls. This is an action...not something that just happens...it's an action verb.
I look back over the last 4 years of my life and think, wow, has my life changed dramatically. Never in my craziest thoughts did I think I would have to take a year and a half off from school to grieve the loss of a parent, or that my husband would quit an awesome job to begin his own ad agency in a crazy economy but I think, no, I know that with God all things are possible and it is possible to run the race in the midst of storms! I was reading this week about the Israelites being brought out of Egypt and something struck me as odd...I've read the story a million times but this time I read something I had never seen. The Israelites were walking before they got to the red sea and they were complaining to Moses, they said WE didn't want to leave Egypt Moses you brought us out here it wasn't our choice. We know the rest of the story, that they just wandered around the desert for years and complained even though God showed Himself to them over and over and OVER again. And it hit me, they were walking a walk that they said they didn't choose so therefore they complained...and I applied that to our modern day world. Everyone knows somebody in the "church" who complains about everything and it occurred to me that if you, me, anyone who calls themselves a Christian does not make it their own choice, they will constantly be complaining because their heart is not in it, whereas, if it is YOUR choice to pursue God and love and serve Him, even though life can and will be hard, you know that you are running a race for a reason and that because you love Him all you can think about is your life glorifying Him alone.
Have you ever been in a situation where you thought, hey, I didn't choose this situation?? I know I have! About 6 months after my dad passed away I hit a brick wall and was an absolute mess. I didn't share it with anyone because I knew I just needed to step back and re assess what I was doing and as I sat there I remembered the day my dad died, in the morning I had my girls conferences and I knew I would go to the hospital after I talked with their teachers. As I pulled into the school I looked down and saw that my diamond had fallen out of my wedding ring, I've never taken my ring off, never lost it and definitely had never lost a diamond. I just sat in the car and thought, yeah, I could really have gone without that happening today...he died that night and as I looked down at him I remembered I had lost my diamond...banner bad day I thought! Two days later (after Jim searched the entire house and car for it he couldn't find it) it was the morning of his funeral and I got out of the shower and walked over to where I always pray in my bedroom...I collapsed on the floor, face to the ground just crying out to God for strength and as I wiped the tears from eyes right in front of my eyes, exactly where I kneel to always pray was the diamond to my ring..and I just felt God say "Amy, kneeling before me right here will be the only way you are going to get through this next year." I thought that was weird because that would be an obvious thing to do....it wasn't though... through the grief I didn't take time to pray because I was in a situation I didn't choose!
Everyone kept saying that I would just have to live with this sadness and I would just get used to it! That always infuriated me because my whole life I was a glass half full kind of person and now my glass was not only not full but it had been picked up and thrown against a wall and I didn't want to "get used to" being so sad...so for 6 months I didn't kneel or choose to ask for His help to run this crazy race I was thrown into....until a friend said Amy your life doesn't stop here...you keep going and instead of thinking everything is done begin to think about all the things God is going to use you to do and when you get to Heaven then you can tell your dad everything. It was at that point those few words encouraged me to get up and begin running the race again and making a choice to walk even when I was in a situation I didn't choose...even though I found myself in a difficult time I could still choose God! It literally changed the way I looked at my situation! I didn't learn to live with the sadness I let God use it to grow and eventually there was joy again.
So, here I am ready to complete my degree and it's so cool to see how God just works everything out in our lives if we allow Him! I get to be a designer which is something I've always wanted to do and I get to sing almost every Sunday which is the other thing I love to do and I count it all a privilege to have an amazing husband and awesome kids and be able to pour my life into so many things while hoping to bring glory to God through everything I do on this race...and all the while collecting quite a list to share with my dad when I get home...
