Did God stop loving me?

Did God stop loving me?

January 2008 was a year that started off ugly. We had just hit failure right in the face with a church plant we were doing in the metro Atlanta area. The words, “I don’t think it has what it takes/ I don’t think you have what it takes still at times haunt me.” Even if these thoughts held truth, no one ever wants to hear these words. These words in my mind translated- you are a failure, you are not good enough, you are not the right person for the job because you did not do a good job, you’re a failure, your giftings are somewhere else, you’re a failure etc. Times like these open the door for several things. First is the obvious. It is a time of teaching and growing in the Lord. A time for Him to prune you and draw you closer to Him, become more usable. Or it can be an open door for discouragement, bitterness, resentment, even a turning away from the things of God.

For me, this turned into bitterness and some very deep wounds. Not for one moment did I ever stop believing God loved me, but I sure did not “feel” that He loved me. I also felt like the more I sought Him the more silent He seemed to be. Having a relationship with the Lord since age 7, in times like these I get so frustrated because I feel like I know most if not all of the churchy (which really equals truth) answers. If I were to share, I could play in my mind what this person or that person would say. As well as even telling myself what I would say to someone else in this position. I wanted to be allowed to be hurt, I wanted my hurt and despair to be understood, and I wanted to be given back what I felt at the time was stolen from me. I wanted our reputation to be restored and I even found myself wanting my husband and myself to be something we were not. I wanted us to be that dynamic couple that would grow a huge church, lead people to the Lord, make disciples, and have books written about our success. Believe it or not, my heart was very pure. I wanted to be part of kingdom work with a huge success rate. I was desperate for answers and understanding of why the Lord allowed this to happen. We really thought you lead us here Lord. We thought we were doing what you asked. How did we blow it or better yet, you could have done it through us. Why did you let us fail? I wanted all these yucky feelings many of them lies to melt away. Can you say “counseling” was much needed!

What now Lord? Beyond the obvious with bills to pay we sat in this position of having no idea what God had in store all the while feeling so inadequate to do anything. I have heard the comment more than once, “Men go into ministry because they aren’t qualified for anything else.” If this were truth then what happens when you fail here as well? I knew this was not truth but it consumed so much of my thinking. What do others think and say about us. My husband as a leader, pastor, church planter??? This really grieved me. All I could think is, “Lord this has to be the bottom but that phrase that the bottom is solid just did not seem to be truth for me!” Nothing felt solid!

Here was an ongoing question I had for the Lord…. We have obviously failed at being the next Mr. and Mrs. Rick Warren. My husband does not have the natural gift of leadership and is not a natural visionary. He is not even on the top ten list of most effective communicators, but he has a heart like David, a faith like Abraham, a spirit like Joseph, is ordinary like Moses, in a small glimpse has walked in the desert like Job, he sits at Jesus feet like Mary, but….. Is our reputation like Noah and for us even a step further that the rains never came?

At this point, if my dad was living, he would hand me his all time favorite comment, “Come on Connie, land the plane. I do not need all these details. Get to the point!” Daddy, bear with me because all these details really will come to a really exciting moment…

Let me stress that I do believe it is important to pin point our gifts and work from where we are gifted and work out of our strengths. My inward struggle comes when I look to the Word. Searching the scriptures, I find God used more people to accomplish and do God sized things; yet, they were not “cutting edge”. They were simple, usable men. This is where I see it gave God all the credit. I am not suggesting that successful/cutting edge pastors that do have the huge kingdom success stories in their churches do not possess the same attributes as my husband and those in the Word I have mentioned but also with these additional gifts. Please also know that this is not an entry for my next theology contest, but truly the struggles that raged on a constant basis through my mind. I was always trying to figure this out and understand what in the world God wanted to do in my life and how He wanted to use my husband in ministry.

(For the record, I do believe that God calls us to do things out side of our area of gifting or natural ability. I believe he does this because it gives that much more room for Him to take the spot light. It draws us to a deeper dependence on him. I also believe that working from our strengths, gifts, and natural abilities is wise.)

To this day, I still cannot explain to you what God’s purpose was in this long period of waiting. I also cannot explain to you why we really feel God called us to plant a church and then it failed. This happened in December 2007 and we did not fully commit to come to Burkina until May 2009. Lord, Sweet Jesus aren’t you the one who is out for my best interest? 18 months with Chris out of a “steady/real” job and a whole bunch of silence does not feel like my best interest. We now have debt and need to raise support- and might I add this is something that does not come easy to us.

To bring a little sunlight into my testimony, we did indeed Praise the Lord with this new found direction! It was very scary, but also very exciting. We are moving to Africa. So the process and planning began. What will it take and when will the Lord send us. We had set several things as a standard for what needed to happen for us personally and financially. We would move forward in that direction until every door had been shut. In our minds, one of our biggest things we asked of the Lord was to confirm to us this direction through our finances. In this economy to raise this amount of money could only be a God thing. Even with the help of our mission’s pastor and with the church of our size, it did not guarantee financial support. As you can imagine, after what we had been through we also were very skittish. Could we really be confident in hearing and feeling that this was a solid direction from the Lord?

God opened door after door for us to be here. There were some that literally came with prophetic words of encouragement, there have been others that have been faithful, faithful prayer partners, and then there are others that have given financially. Though we do not have all the monthly support committed that we need, each month, God has blown our minds with those that have given onetime gifts that provided exactly what we need for the month. We are so close to meeting our monthly support. This has been so hard and I have hated each moment of raising support, but God has been faithful.

After being in Burkina 3 months now we have gotten the question many times from dear friends and family…, “How are you really doing? I want the truth.”

I have blogged about my two year journey to answer this one question….Growing can be painful, but I feel like this week God has brought me to my first really big ah ha moment since December 2007. This desert experience has been indescribably difficult…gosh, what was it like for Job? For most, it will seem so simple and so small, but for whatever reason, God has used my time in the Word and my Bible study to jump off the page and minister to my heart in an intimate way for the first time in over 18 months. Has the silence I have felt been broken or have I finally moved to a place where I can now hear his voice? No matter what the reason…. I not only believe that God loves me, but I feel His love for me.

Please pause for a commercial:

Would you consider a onetime donation? Is God leading you to give on a monthly basis? Being able to put finances on a back shelf/ knowing all our funds are raised will enable us to focus more so on ministry. If we had 75 people that would give $25.00 a month, we would have all we need! If we had 19 people give $100.00 a month we would be there. Please pray about supporting us and the ministry in Burkina.

P.S. Thank you Jesus for doctors/counselors like Melissa Hubbard who did indeed speak truth into my life. Who let me feel hurt but challenged me to forgiveness. Thank you Jesus for mothers like mine who hurt with and for me, cry with me, pray for me, and love me every step of the way. Thank you for a brother and sisters who stand by me always wanting and hoping for the best in my life, who do late night depression movies, oatmeal cookies, wedding cake, La Parilla meals, etc. Thank you for friends that show up at my house after a plea for prayer has been made with Take 5’s candy bars, encouragement, and prayer. Thank you for a co-worker like Linda that made days of intense discouragement still seem hopeful. Thank you Jesus for friends that pray just because they hate that I am hurting and want peace in my life. Thank you God for loving me so much that just like Jesus, you allowed these hardships and shattered dreams in my life to result in a long time of sufferings that would not necessarily bring understanding, but would bring life lessons and rejuvenation in my relationship with you.

My story to be continued…..