We Were Made to Conquer Giants

If God has shown me anything in the last year, it's that He created us to do good works... to show His good works in the world.  There are broken people and broken lives in every corner of the globe.  While poverty has its own set of injustice and brokenness, the brokenness that I see in private practice is also brokenness.  We are all lost, all broken, all in need, and lately, I feel like God's been using me to be like David, conquering giants I never thought possible with nothing but a sling and a few pebbles.

Since college and surrendering (after 7 changes in my major) to the idea that I was being called to be a therapist, a pastoral care, a counselor, and a beacon of hope for the marginalized, I have had moments of victory that I often draw from in the darker moments.  Today, our marketing specialist said, "so at what point in your life did you know you were doing the right thing?"  I, being the extrovert to the extreme, with a warning of caution that I will babble and ramble on, explain that well, there were many moments.  Maybe I am just hyper-attuned to the way God has used me, but I can recall dozens of times in the last decade of my life that God was leading me to care for people emotionally.   It probably started after I was sexually assaulted in high school and went to therapy.  A level headed therapist named Bev helped me process the trauma, or at least start to process what it means to be a "victim" at the beginning of my formation of self.  I remember sitting in my office and reading my journal to her.  I had a long entry about the experience and I looked up to tears in her eyes.  Composed, she reflected how she could feel what I was writing so much so that it was hard not contain her tears.  I thought to myself that I might some day enjoy a job where I could just sit with people and let them feel and I could feel with them, too.  I think in that therapy, I learned so much about how much power I have over my life.  I have the power to be happy, sad, to be a victim or a victor.  I could see my life as a series of "glass half empty moments" or I could gain the strength to see where I was blessed.   A few months later, I accepted Christ into my life, and I've never looked back. 

College was such a pinnacle time of growth from me that continued to set the pace for how God allowed my own brokenness to then grow me, use me, and conquer giants in my life.  Whether it be the need for love and acceptance, the need to escape, the need to trust myself, the need to find out who I am, God had moment after moment where He molded the messy lump of clay into a distinguishable figure, far from perfect but none-the-less a tool for his usage.  I remember days of binge drinking which lead to days of brokenness.  Days of family arguments that clouded my heart about who I felt like by.  I remember friends back stabbing, and friends that I stopped caring for.  I think of the joys of sorority life and to sorrow of recommiting my life to Christ but then becoming the "weird girl who didn't party anymore".  I remember late night conversations with my sisters (in the sorority) where I had the courage to pray for them, and they received Jesus in their heart.  I remember those tear filled moments where sisterhood was my backbone, my everything.  I remember falling in love.  I remember my heart breaking.  I remember my life, a series of broken moments and joys that all lead to my heart wanting to go to seminary and becoming a therapist.  I was so blessed to have such a rich experience.  I grew into myself more and more...

Here I stand looking back on my journey, and God has helped me overcome infertility, fear of intimacy, and lack of self-confidence and forced me to see that I can love, I can create and I can succeed (with his help).  I realize that while I am still a sloppy, messy ball of clay, I have started to take shape into something God uses for his glory.  I keep finding my prayers to say,  Use my brokenness to give hope to women with endometriosis who struggle with fertility issues.  Use me for that tired graduate student who has bouts of doubt that their ever get their license.  Use me as that self-conscious woman with a business goal to be a business owner.  Use me as that mother who just wants to do the right thing for her child.  Use me God to continue to conquer the giants that I fear and the giants that I never thought I could face...

In a matter of days, I will be living the life I always wanted (with the paperwork I forgot to factor in).  I am blown away.  I am amazed.  I don't know how, why me, or when the blessings will turn to a wave of brokenness again, but for now, I stay in a place of awe and surrender.  I am staring down the giants of my mind that I didn't think I'd overcome.  I know it was not by my strength.  I know it was His hand, but some how I feel strength.  It confirms to me that God is here, God is real, and God is so very present in every prayer I pray. 

Each day that goes by, it's a speedy little blur.  This life we have is so short.  The baby grows literally before my eyes like she created million more cells on her body each day.  I am overwhelmed by my love for her, overwhelmed by this cheering section of friends from near and far that have been there along the way.  I am constantly looking vertically, God, you are so BIG, so awesome, and so good to me.  You have conquered all my fears and continued to show me that you love me despite my constant doubt.   It's not all simple and 90% of this is all out of my control, but Lord, you have made me feel so safe these past few months despite being the most scared I've ever been. 

I have a hard time understanding how people can deny God.  I've been at the bottom of my rope, not wanting to live, and God spoke and poured into my life.  I sought him, and since that He is constantly persueing me to have faith in him and take a leap.  I don't know how it happens most the time, like a dream, I just work hard and he provides.  I just listen and he answers.  Like that ask, seek, knock verse.  I have learned the art of surrender and some how I've found victory.  I just feel it, like somehow I was made to conquer giants...