Have you read that quote that says, “Life is not measured by the
number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away?” That may very well be true, but this weekend
I am reminded about how life is made up of God moments. These aren’t usually huge and grand
moments. They aren’t filled with
flashing lights and screaming words.
After all, “It was such a terrible blast
that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And
after the fire there was the sound of a
gentle whisper.” (1 Kings 19:11b-12, emphasis mine) Don’t think God can’t speak through wind,
earthquakes, and fire but I find in my life He chooses to whisper. That is how we can know when we are truly
listening. You don’t have to listen hard
to experience Him in a fire or earthquake, but a whisper?
I know that most people have been reading
about my journey on here, Twitter, or Facebook because you want to know about
my fitness journey. My life is focused
on one thing right now, and that is my health.
In December I hit a goal I had been looking towards (and doubting I
would ever reach) when I lost 100 pounds.
Since then success has been something that has been hit and miss. But today I don’t necessarily want to talk
about that but instead I want to talk about what else has been happening. Be forewarned, this could be lengthy. J
So in December I was hired to be a
temporary teacher at Lenoir City High School.
My mentor teacher had retired and I was blessed to be hired as his
replacement. You have to understand what
a blessing this was. I was going somewhere
I felt somewhat comfortable, I had a couple of friends, and where I wasn’t
going to be tied down by a state mandated deadline for end of the course
testing. I could go at my kids’ speed
and not worry about getting through a certain amount of material. To say I fell in love with my students would
be an understatement. Though I am not
sure if they believe me when I say that I don’t dislike any of them (I tell
them I dislike their choices), that is the truth. I see what they can be and what they are and
their sweet little hearts. These kids
have thrown me a surprise birthday party, given me class mascots to sit on my
desk, give me hugs, spend time in my room when they don’t have to, and are
generally are just good kids. Unfortunately,
I found out last week that I would not be returning here next year. I knew that this was most likely going to be the
case going into the job but I hadn’t fallen in love with students then. Needless to say, I am crushed that I will
lose these kids and this environment which in a world that is going further and
further from Christ, still seeks Him.
I am actively looking for a teaching job
for next year and have already interviewed at the school that I have always
dreamed about teaching. If you know me
well, you know what school I am talking about.
I know (head knowledge) that God has plan for my life. I know that where He wants me to work will be
a place where I can bring Him glory. After
all, no matter what life brings our primary objective on this planet is to
glorify His name. That head knowledge is
working on moving to my heart but more on that later.
With any kind of new job or life situation,
you have stress. It is a good stress because
it is coming from a place of excitement and expectation but it is stressful
none the less. I don’t handle stress
well. I think we all know that. If this had been the only stress in my life,
maybe things would have been different.
But it wasn’t and we can’t go back in time. There are a lot of things that you don’t
think about when you are eating your life away.
For instance, do you know how much money it costs to replace your
wardrobe every couple of months? Do you
know how much it costs to pay for a gym and a trainer so that you are actively
working to change your life? Do you know
how much it costs to have adequate athletic gear to do the things you have
fallen in love with? Spin shoes, running
shoes, gym shoes, shorts, T-shirts, compression shorts, etc? Have you ever thought about that? Money is always stressful but even so it
still wasn’t the most stressful part of my life.
When you lose a lot of weight (I am up to
120 lbs) you aren’t just losing fat. If
you haven’t walked this journey, trust me when I say you can’t know what I am
talking about. You become a different
person. Yes, I still have the same heart
that loves Jesus and wants to be married with kids more than anything else on
this planet. Yes, I am still a
Wood. However, things are stripped away
from you. No longer do you have your
weight to blame or to hide behind. You
don’t have a built in excuse or a built in protection from the pain that will
come. Parts of you are changed. The way you deal with positive good things
change and the way you deal with the negative changes. You walk unsteadily in a world you used to
know but now you don’t quite know where you fit. You don’t fit in where you used to. Like I said, everything shifts. Sometimes your family and friends get it and
sometimes they don’t. It can be a lonely
journey.
In case you didn’t know I have suffered
from depression since I was high school.
Yes, I have done counseling. Yes,
I have done medication. Yes, I have been
suicidal. Yes, anything you think about
depression I have been there. It isn’t
something I am ashamed of any more. I
used to be. Too many Christians believe
that depression is always a result of sin but that is NOT the case. Yes, it can be but when we stick that on
everyone we are doing so much damage to them.
So with the new job, the new me, the money issues, and just everyday
life I began having a roller coaster life again with some good highs but with
some nasty lows. Roller coasters may be
fun for a couple of minutes but when one day you are happy and content and the
next day you are devastated, there is nothing fun about it. I decided to go on an anti-depressant again
just to try to balance out and gain some perspective. A friend told me many years ago that
sometimes you need a little help just to get to the place where you can deal
with any issues that are causing the depression. I completely agree. But this time I didn’t realize what this
seemingly simple decision would do to my life for the next 3 months.
That was February. This is April. Since I began taking that medicine, nothing
in the circumstances of my life have changed.
However, I am in a much worse place.
You expect when you take something to help you, for it to help you. In my case the two different drugs I have
tried so far have instead driven me lower.
Yes, I am not swinging from high to low but instead I operate on a
passionless, dead stare, just try to survive mentality. And even worse, I do not sleep. I am not talking that I am up constantly but
instead I go to sleep and then wake up every couple of hours. Every night.
And this isn’t a wake up groggy and go right back to sleep, this is a
wake up and I am completely alert. I
have thoughts going on and song lyrics in my head as if they were playing while
I was asleep. This happens every
night. So compound the life
circumstances, the depression, and the sleep problems and you have a very
dysfunctional Hannah. I don’t write this
to complain. I have done that
enough. I write this to tell you what
God showed me this weekend in various moments.
Do you know what it means to rest? In terms of physical rest I am definitely at
a deficient place. But what about in
terms of your soul and spirit? I don’t
do well there either. Check out this
passage from my “Made to Crave” devotional referring to Matthew 11:28:
“Then Jesus said,
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 NLT
"The Greek word for this kind
of rest is anapauo which means "of calm and patient expectation." in
other words Jesus is saying, "If you come to me, I will take your
exhaustion in this area and turn it into expectation. In this place you
feel hopeless, I can make you hopeful."...One of the assignments Jesus
gives us is to take on his yoke and learn from him. In other words,
discipline and work are necessary. This is my part of the equation.
But after the assignment comes reassurance. God knows where your
strength ends and that is the exact point where his strength
begins.""
Did you catch that? Resting
means “of calm and patient expectation.”
Does that define you? In this
moment and in this time of my life it most definitely does not define me. I am not calm. I am a basket case about whether I will have
a job next year, about whether I am ever going to start losing weight again,
about whether I am ever going to get married, about how I can survive
financially, about how long is it going to be before I can move out of my
parent’s house, etc. I am not calm. I am not patient. I am not waiting on the Lord. I continue to live out of the impatience and
anxiety of my own flesh. This God who
not only died for me but who holds my eternal salvation in His mighty hands is
telling me to be calm and patient and rest.
But what do I do? I wander.
This weekend was my weekend to volunteer
with the Tech ministry at church. I go
to Faith Promise. I struggled with the
decision to call and say I couldn’t come.
I am so very tired and honestly the thought of hearing all the happy,
peppy music and having to be fake around people just was exhausting. I wanted to stay home where I could be sad
and be left alone. I have so much I
needed to do this weekend anyway. As
hard as I fought to make myself stay home, my sense of responsibility wouldn’t
let me skip out. I went last night and
found that as always, God was expecting me.
Did you know he wrote an entire sermon just for me?
I love Israel. I don’t why and I don’t when it started but
anything to do with the Jewish people just makes me happy and interested. I know that I have always resonated with part
of their story. If you are familiar at
all with the Old Testament you know that the Israelites were God’s chosen
people. He made a covenant with them and
gave them a Promised Land. This land was
freaking amazing. Take the most
beautiful and productive land you can think of, magnify it by a million and you
may start to get close to what the Promised Land was. However, the Israelites were stupid. They see God give them water from a rock,
pour down manna and quail from Heaven, continuously renew their clothes, guide
them as a cloud in the day and as fire at night, but none of that changed
them. They disbelieved God. They said, sure you did all that but you can’t
defeat these nations. They are too big
and we are too small. You can’t do
it. So instead of entering this land
that God had already promised them, they wandered around in a desert for 40
years until they had all died off. 40
years of wandering and 40 years of opportunities to trust and lean on God. Instead, they doubted and complained. They lived this constant cycle of seeing the
goodness and miracles of the Lord, walking with Him, growing weary, turning
away from God, suffering the consequences, turning back to God, seeing His
goodness and miracles, and on and on it went.
Now before you get too upset with them, think about yourself. How many times has God provided for you? How many times has He come through? Over and over again God proves himself to
us. Over and over again we forget and go
back to living without Him. This is
definitely the picture of my life.
God has promised each one of His children
that we can “have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Yet, I choose most days to survive. To subsist.
To barely make it through the day with sanity intact (and that is
debatable). Why when I have bought with
the precious blood of Christ do I continue to live chained in sin? Why do I continue to wander through the
desert when God has thrown open the doors to the Promised Land and invited me
in? The answer is simple: I don’t trust God. We are going to stay in the Wilderness until
we choose to trust God. Until we learn
to lean on Him. I for one have not
learned this lesson.
Why when the answer is so simple am I still
wandering? Each one of us has to ask God
this question but for me, part of my answer is fear. In the sermon today Pastor Chris talked about
Israelites. He pointed out that faith
concerning our future is scary. That is
the truth for me in this moment. My
future is scary. I don’t know where I
will be working, how I can survive financially without a teaching job, how I
can be successful and grow still living at my parent’s, how I can continue to
wait on my heart’s desire, and how I can continue on this health journey when
it seems to have hit a brick wall. All
of this scares me. I am scared about who
I am and who I am becoming. Am I
honoring God with the changes in me or am I growing further from him? Am I constantly seeking His will and His
direction or have I gone back to the old me and completely depend on others and
the world for direction? It is
scary. HOWEVER, my God and my Savior is
love and “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”
(1 John 4:18) My Father tells me that if
I will only trust him that he will fight for me. I love this verse in Exodus 14:14 “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today…The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” The one who created the Universe, who
literally breathed the stars into being will fight for me. If I will let Him. But what do I do, I choose to remain a slave
wandering in the desert.
The Israelites had choices. They could have trusted God and entered into
the Land he had prepared for them. They
could have returned to Egypt. After all,
they knew what to expect there. They
were slaves and their life was horrible but at least they knew what they were walking
into. They instead chose to wander. To fight and struggle with resting in God and
to witness some amazing miracles but miss the One who was performing them. What decision are you making today? I know that I am in the wilderness. I know that I am not trusting God in spite of
His miracles and provisions. I intend to
remedy that. Does that mean I will wake
up in a great mood tomorrow regardless of sleep? No it doesn’t. But what it means is that I have been placed
under the conviction and compassion of my merciful God and I choose this day to
submit to His will and direction for my life.
Yes, the future is scary. Yes, I
don’t know what waits for me. But I do
know who walks beside me. My Jesus who
promises me, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a
future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) and that, “But those who trust in
the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings
like eagles. They will run and not grow
weary. They
will walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Father, let it be done as you have
said. I choose to rest in you and walk
with you. I choose to step and trust you
to move. I choose to place my faith and
my future in your nail-scarred hands. Keep
me close. Bring passion that is
unparalleled in my existence. Restore my
hope. Pour out your peace. Father as the song says, “But You were
the One who filled my cup. And You were
the One who let it spill. So blessed be
your Holy name if you never fill it up again.
If this is where my story ends, just give me one more breath to say, Hallelujah.”
