The Conviction, The Challenge, The Change: How putting God first impacted my week...

The Conviction

September has been a really hard month for our family. We have dealt with sickness after sickness and it has really taken a toll on me. My attitude has been horrible and I found myself with no purpose or vision for what life was looking like. I complained time and time to my husband, I had little patience for my daughter and my self-esteem was nowhere to be found. It was amazing to me how down I got on myself.

Last Sunday we got called out of church because our daughter wouldn’t calm down in the nursery. I prayed to God…’What is happening, why is Olive so upset, why is everything feeling so crazy right now??’ His answer was so gracious and loving, but full of great conviction. He asked me, ‘Jordyn, if you want to be the rock for your family why would they be acting normal if you are acting so chaotic and abnormal?’

As I pondered this statement, I knew God was right (but isn’t he always. Ha. ). I have prayed about being the rock for my family-as a wife and mother. I want to bring peace and stability to my family, so why would I think if I am not bringing that to myself, that my family would experience those things. I had to make a change in how I dealt with the stresses and chaos that life would ultimately bring.

The Challenge

So after I realized the conviction God laid on my heart, He followed it up with a challenge. He challenged me to put Him first during the week-to seek Him when life got hard and to dive into His word to look for answers. The thing about this is that I know that is what you do when life gets hard, but for the weeks leading up to this challenge, I was so against hearing from God. I didn’t want to hear the same thing over again ‘I am with you’, ‘Do not fear’, ‘I have a great plan for you’. I didn’t want to hear it because I didn’t think I was worth those promises. So last Sunday I humbled myself and accepted God’s challenge. I decided that no matter what happened, I was going to bring it all to God. I was going to do my daily devotion, even if it was only 10 mins, but I was going to seek God in all things.

Here’s the thing guys-Monday came (the day after I made this commitment) and both my daughter and my husband came down with a new sick sickness. I ended up taking my daughter to urgent care to find out she had an ear infection and then we had to go back to the doctor on Wednesday when she developed a rash. My life circumstances didn’t change much from the weeks before. I still had chaos in my life, I still had a lot of the same stresses that I had before, but my attitude changed. My mind was no longer in the craziness of life; it was rooted in the power of Jesus.

The Change

I love following Christ. I love all the things I have learned about Him and myself through the journey. But what I have learned is that it is not always smooth sailing. Yesterday my pastor was talking about when Jesus walks on the water (Matt. 22-33) and how the storm in that story is normal-there’s nothing abnormal about experiencing a storm. It’s when you look past your circumstance and focus on Jesus when the supernatural happens.

I learned from this challenge that our circumstances may not change all that much when we focus our eyes on Jesus, but it’s our attitude and outlook that can change. It was really hard for me to continue to focus on the sickness that overtook our family. I am 25 weeks pregnant and sleep is not my friend these days, so I am exhausted. I don’t have the patience and energy to be taking care of everyone in my family 24/7, I need time for myself too, but this week as I leaned further and further into Christ, I was able to get energy from Him even when I was up most of the night with either my clingy baby or my coughing husband. What’s amazing about learning a new discipline in our faith is that it doesn’t take just one time to learn it. You have to practice and practice. I know that this is only the beginning of constantly putting Christ first, but what an encouraging week to remind myself of when life gets chaotic again.

So full disclosure here-when I was originally typing this post up, I was sitting at my dining room table, facing my kitchen. I looked up and saw a mouse run across our stove, onto our counter and back behind the wall. This was the second mouse I saw in the last week. Good news: we ended up catching both of them and we haven’t seen any more since! Bad News: my reaction was horrible. I freaked out; I called my husband hysterical and crying, complaining about what to do, etc.

How real is it that in one moment we can talk about changing our attitude towards things and in the next, we are doing the exact opposite.  For so many years I have tried so hard to change things about myself. I would be doing so well and feel so encouraged, until that one time where I had a slip up and reacted the way I had been so hard trying not to do. Over my years and facing these circumstances with true honesty, I realized that I was not accepting the grace that God was offering me. I was being so hard on myself that one mistake made me doubt and question all the work I put in and send me back to step one.

I’ve learned about the importance of grace in learning periods like this. If we truly want to become more like Christ, we have to accept the grace. We have to know that we will make mistakes and fall short. But by the grace of God we are able to rise above those missteps and overcome them. God will give you the resources you need. Mine was my amazing husband reminding me of no matter what happens, God has overcome this world and he spoke truth into my life.

I encourage you to focus on God this week. Focus on His truth and grace. Focus on the life that he has for you. Life is going to be full of storms, full of unexpected curve balls, but if we continue to focus our attention on the Lord of Lords, Creator of the Universe, our Abba Father- those storms may just impact us a little less. Don’t walk this alone. Reach out to the resources God has placed in your life, and if you don’t know who that may be, I am always here for you. You are prayed for, cared for and loved more than you will know. God has a great plan for you.

Romans 3:23, John 16:33, Jeremiah  29:11

Rooted Faith

Honesty is the best policy, right? Well I want to start this journey being honest with you. This is way harder than I anticipated. They say the first step is always the hardest, but really step 2, 3, 4… can be just as hard. It’s after step 1 that the doubt and questioning come in.

I’ve had a pretty tough last week. With sickness and exhaustion wrecking our house, I have not had a lot of motivation to do much-especially pray and seek God about what my next post should be. I have had a couple good breakdowns that I am not too proud of, but they have brought me to a place of honesty with myself and with God.

If you want to know who I am, then welcome to the club. Even after almost 28 years on this earth and following Christ for the majority of those years, I realized that I am continually learning about myself and God. I think that is what is so precious about God himself. He isn’t asking us to come to Him all figured out with no sin to work on. What He does is extend His ever so amazing grace and welcomes us, crap and all, to His family. I am not perfect, though my perfectionist side would never want to admit that, but I have found abundant love and grace in my weaknesses. As someone who has spent a lot of her life proving to other people that I am worth something, that I deserve to be respected, that I am a different person now, I am tired. I am tired of living life for the approval of others. God is the final judge of my life. That is who I am to be seeking approval from. I want Him, at the end of my days, to look me in the eyes and smile and say ‘Well Done, good and faithful servant.’ But if I want that, I’ve got to start being honest.

I thought that starting this blog was going to be about all of you. Reaching people through the worldwide web, talking about who Jesus is and what it looks like to follow him, but what I realized is that this is for me as much as it is for you. The whole reason behind this blog is to experience rooted faith. A faith that is so intertwined with who God is that no matter what happens in life we are still clinging to and praising Jesus. I realized that I need to work on this too. This journey isn’t the end of something that I have come through and now get to tell you about. This journey is about the here and now; the daily struggle of finding myself and my purpose in my new chapter. And right now that new chapter is being a mom. This blog isn’t just for moms or stay at home moms like me, though I will talk about my family a lot. Ha. But this is a place to find true honesty and grace-things I am finding for myself too.

I am rooted in the truth of who God says I am.  There are many days where I fight really hard against the lies the enemy is telling me, but I pray that through this journey we get to find out who God says we all are. The best part is, I know what He says about you and me is really awesome and special. I know that God is good and that He fights for those who love Him. I am excited. I needed this. I need you. I need God. 

Why a blog?

I think I have questioned starting a blog for almost a year now. I had one that I started in college and I did enjoy it, but it wasn't something that I was consistent with. Since becoming a mom about a year and a half ago, I have struggled with God on what my ministry is these days. I have been involved with ministry with young adults for almost 7 years with my husband, but since having our daughter it was hard for me to continue since my heart was always at home. 

I have such a heart to be in relationship with people and share what the Lord has done and is doing in my life so I discussed what that looked with God. I spent a lot of time doing things my own way instead of trusting and relying on God’s timing and purpose. I realized that if I was ever going to do this whole blog thing for real, I was going to have to realize a lot of things about myself and about God. I am not a writer, most days I do not feel worthy of anyone listening to what I have to say, but I realized that God wanted to still use me in my new season of life. I fought starting a blog for so long because I felt like it was what everyone does and I didn’t want to jump on that bandwagon too. But every time I prayed about where God had me, He kept pressing on my heart that He wasn’t done with my leadership and abilities, but that it was going to look a lot different than what I had done in the past. 

I am really good at talking myself out of things. Excuses have become my new friend. But I no longer want to live in that. I have read so many things from women that I look up to and inspire to be and all I hear is ‘You are worth it!’, ‘Chase your dreams’, ‘God has something for you exactly where you are at’. What I realized while reading all this encouraging stuff was that if I wanted to encourage and inspire others, I had to start allowing myself to be inspired and encouraged by other people too. I cannot do this alone and nor do I want to. 

So here I go, I am taking the leap, I am jumping in and seeing where this goes. I heard one day that failure is not trying- so rather than seeing failure as no one reading this, I am seeing it is as, ‘well at least I tried’. The rest is in God’s hands. So here we go, I pray you will take this journey with me. Each and every one of you that reads this mean so much to me and know that even though we may not know each other-I care and pray for you. You are something special. I know that because I realized that about myself-a stay at home mom that is trying to figure out this thing called life. God can and will do great things whether or not I ever see the tangible. I trust him with this.  

Check out my next post coming soon as to who I am and why I am ‘rooted in the Hills.’