Casting your cares and miracles in action.

I've always been told that I process things in a really weird way. Sometimes, I will read the Bible and tell someone what I got from it, and they give me this deer in a headlight look. It used to make me shy away from sharing what I'm seeing - I was so afraid of being wrong, that I never realized maybe the revelation I'm receiving actually is from God. A few months ago, a powerhouse woman of God came up to me and whammied me with all these beautiful things - one of them being that God delights in the way I process His Word.

WHAT.

The way I process His Word -- He DELIGHTS in that? Honestly it completely blew my mind - it was an area I held so much insecurity in. The last thing I want to do is share my heart about something I read and be completely wrong, steering people away from Jesus. My heart is to ALWAYS point to Jesus, and understandably I'm going to get that wrong sometimes. I know that. No one is ever 100% right. But there are times where I know in my knower that Jesus is showing me something really cool, and sometimes it gets me weird looks. This woman sharing what she heard truly gave me confidence to share the things I process... and since doing so, I have been overwhelmed at things God is showing me. I am so grateful for women who are so confident in Jesus and work in their gifting. She had no idea that this would be a launching pad for my purpose - or maybe she did, I don't know. What an encouragement, and what a beautiful lesson to get out there and work in your gifting, whatever gift that may be, because it really can make a big impact on someone's life.

I'm a part of a Christian Infertility Support Group on Facebook, and these women are changing my life and helping me grow in
my purpose. God has given me these beautiful women to teach me so much, and I don't think they have any actual idea how much I value the conversations we have. We've created this beautiful space to ask the hard questions about faith and our relationship with God. We're all in this waiting season, holding simultaneously onto Jesus and our desires, and feeling sometimes like we're at a crossroads of our plan vs. His. Maybe our plan IS His plan in His timing, and maybe not. The journey of faith proves that we won't always know until we do, and the tension of waiting can do some crazy things to our heart and identity. Allowing this safe space with doubt also allows us speak life into one another, and that is overwhelmingly beautiful. To see a band of women come together to support each other makes my heart sing! We don't always get it right, but we're holding onto these shared hurts with this cautious vulnerability. Truth is, we're scared. Scared to get it wrong, to miss our purpose, to miss what God is showing us.

A beautiful woman just mentioned casting our cares on God. 1 Peter 5:7 says to give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. I think I've allowed this verse to beat me up more than it ever has soothed my heart -- I'm casting, Jesus, and You're not doing your part to take it! You must not want it from me, so I'll pick it right back up. I'll stew and simmer and wallow in the ache of my anxiety over a dream not realized, assuming that the promises aren't for me. Why do we do this to ourselves? All it does is drive us bananas. 

What we fail to realize is how much grace there really is for our limited understanding. God uses our struggle and our tension, our confusion and our doubt to help us grow - if we allow it. There is so much grace for picking our cares back up - it's not a one-and-done upheaval of worries thrown at the feet of Jesus. We don't bury the fears and anxieties at the cross and never see them again. I wish that's how it worked, and sometimes, over time, we can be broken free of the bondage of anxiety. But we're in a fallen world and to expect perfection this side of heaven is a major let down for our hearts. 

Jesus knows a little something about picking up the hard stuff and dragging it to the place of hope. John 19:17: Carrying the cross by himself, he went to the place called the Place of the Skull [in Hebrew, Golgotha]. Jesus carried the very thing He was to be nailed to. Jesus will help us drag our cares, anxiety, doubt, fears, concern, worries, tension, lack of faith - He will help us carry all of these back to the cross, just as He Himself carried the cross to Golgotha. It was in that space, that very place in Golgotha that God used to bring hope and eternity to mankind. It was in the Place of the Skull that God would redeem darkness, throwing light to it all. The verse tells us that Jesus carried the cross by Himself, and because of this we do not have to carry our cross alone

I see this visual of humanity struggling with the heavy load on our shoulders we were never meant to or asked to carry. This is why we are told to cast our cares onto Him - letting Jesus do the heavy lifting back to the cross for us. This is where we receive the peace that surpasses all understanding. This is the place of grace that we can learn that in the moment of our deepest struggle, Jesus will pick it all up and allow it to be weighted down onto Him, on that cross. The love and care from our sweet Father is overwhelming, isn't it?

And this stuff is hard. I get it, and it's a struggle I work through more often than I don't. I read these Scriptures and my brain goes wild with these images of struggle. I crave so desperately in my seasons of waiting to scratch the surface more and more of Jesus' love for me, and when I read John 19:17 and see that He carried His struggle to the place we would forever see as hope and heaven someday, I am so overwhelmed. I can't cling to any sadness or anxiety when I see what has been done for me and for you.

My prayer is that we're forever on this crazy journey of allowing Jesus to chase us in these beautifully weird ways. That we may all process His Word just the way He wants us to, and that we can understand that working in our gifting is such a delight to our sweet Jesus. If it weren't for other people showing me Jesus in the way He made them, I don't know if I would be able to dig into the Bible the way I am able to now. I truly believe our gifts are given to us to help bring hope and healing, to help steer others to Jesus. Are you using yours? Do you know yours? I didn't until recently, and my mind is blown seeing the ways God has created me. Use your struggle and sacrifice it with your gifting and oh my friends - you get to see miracles in action.

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