Keep Choosing to Believe

How long is too long to wait? A year isn’t long, it seems like only yesterday I typed this post about my word for the year.

God gave me a word - restore.

It felt like honey on my lips.

It felt like a promise in my heart.

It felt like encouragement to my weary soul.

I’m still waiting, still clinging, still hoping.

And, there was this:

“He has also given me another word, a word I have not yet uttered out loud to anyone. It is the rope I'm clinging to. It's a word, so endearing, so full of promise my heart can't yet believe that He said it to me, but it's only January.”

After hitting publish on that post I had an appointment with a woman I had never met and you know what? She spoke the word, she said, “God is going to rescue you.” I sat in awe and silence as she uttered the word I was not yet ready to.

It was only January, now it’s almost December and I'm still waiting. There's an eerie, deafening, silence so palpable it feels like it could crush me.

I hold out hope because it’s only November and He is an on time God, a faithful God.

I listened to Annie F. Downs’ Remember God audiobook and as soon as Kevin Queen started with the intro I knew it was going to be water to my weary soul.

I sobbed at the end of the book because my heart grabbed hold of Annie's year-long wait and her rescue just after the new year and it swelled with hope for my word, the same God to come through for me.

This year my life has looked more like peril than rescue, and I'm a little worse for the wear. Some days I look and feel trampled by life, but I am still hoping in His Word. 

It’s my story today (and I’m sticking to it).

If you haven’t checked out my #supershortstories on Facebook you should. They are four line stories, I publish every day for fun and encouragement.

Once upon a time
They were happy to see me
Because I hoped in His word
THE END #supershortstories

In Remember God Annie is painfully transparent about her year of waiting and believing. I relate to her struggle. I wrestle with fear and hope daily, sometimes momentarily. I question if this word is nothing but my fabricated desire and He never really had any intention to restore or rescue me. My past is also quick to remind me that when someone makes a promise they won’t come through.

"My expectations mix with my fears, and my past failures mix with this life I can build in my mind's eye, and I'm just so scared to hope. I'm so terrifed to picture joy and good things coming from that word when getting let down has become my normal." Annie F. Downs

But His Word is always true! Truth is who He is and restore is what He does, or should I say what He did on the cross?

I have a choice!

It’s simple and complicated all at the same time. It's my choice to believe or not. With my mouth, I say “I believe” - my heart is slower to catch up. I will keep choosing. 

Every time fear says, “He isn’t going to show up, just like so and so.”

Every time my circumstances feel like a piano dropped on me from an 11th-floor apartment.

Every time I want to hide, run and pretend I didn’t hear it.

I will choose to believe.

I will choose to trust.

I will choose to love God.

Because love believes the best and God always believes the best about me.

God isn't waiting so He can punish or taunt me. He is waiting for the perfect time and perfect way to rescue me. Only He knows how that is going to happen. He knows the way that best speaks to my heart. And from what I know of Him there will be growth and healing on the other side. That is a little hard to say right now and a little harder to type, but experience tells me so. He. Will. Come. Through. When all is said and done I will be different and I will be better for having gone through it.

For now, I just keep choosing to believe.