Entry 01: Trusting 1…2…3

Something happened on the way to trusting God. I do not know that I fully expected what I found or what I asked to find in the process, but when I started my discovery the one thing I refused to do was turn back, regardless of what lay ahead. The past 2 months of 2011 have been interesting, to say the least. I have been in a swirl of rebirth in many ways. I found a joy that although not complete yet, was a profound place of peace for the present journey.

I had major surgery 6 years ago. An army of fibroid tumors camped out in my uterus and stayed for a number of years until I figured out how to find insurance to pay for the very expensive surgery needed to remove them. I had just adopted my son Justice so there was a bit of irony in the midst of that season for sure. I was deeply relieved that the scare to my childbearing ability was saved by finally having that surgery and finding a great doctor who did an amazing job saving my uterus. I recovered like a champ and forged ahead in the hope for my future. Waiting for God to bring along a spouse can be kind of like waiting for rain to hit the Death Valley Desert! (Can I get an AMEN from all the single women?) I have however, entrusted my life to the Lord and I preferred his choices way above my own.

In the years since that time I have continued hoping and dreaming for marriage, another adoption and of course, to bear a child. I have loved hearing the voice of God tutor, instruct and direct my life in this new found season of writing, traveling and recording. I’ve blogged a bit about that here on the site. Generally, I feel like I found my way back to the rightness in relating with the Lord and finding again the balance of how to walk righteously in both personal and spiritual areas. Trying to balance motherhood with the career isn’t a picnic, but it is a million times rewarding on both sides. I have become better at living open wide and out loud. It has felt liberating to empty the pockets of my life with what I thought was lasting and real, hand it allback to God and have him hand me a new direction and an obvious trust.

The beauty of it all is that with every turn there is a statement of faith waiting to be sounded out. I’d wish I chosen to trust God more in my youth. I guess in many ways, I did. Some forms of trust though are corners we find ourselves backed into. The hilarity is that most of those corners I even prayed to find myself in! So, alas, I admit, trust felt good. Although a scary and unknown territory at times, I felt sudden relief. I finally witnessed the spring as I watched winter melt. I had successfully finished 3 huge projects in recording, started a worship school, launched another women’s conference, signed a major record deal and survived some very tough betrayals. I wrote a song years ago called Worth it All. Don’t think for a minute that God does not use those words that felt needy then to become more of a need later on. I think that is quite prophetic actually.

I found God to be good. Yes, all the time. In August of 2010 while on a plane headed home for a family camping trip to Seattle I became quite ill. I knew something was wrong but what else can a person do when feeling sick at 35,000 feet? Trust God that I just had the flu! By the time we landed I was taken by ambulance to a small hospital nearby where they discovered a cyst had burst around my left ovary. I think inside I knew something was wrong. I mean, there was pain most the time but I trusted the words of my doctor telling me that she didn’t expect those evil fibroids to return. I went back to my doctor when I got home, and tests were ordered. I was traveling too much to take them and canceled and re-booked several times, until recently. In my quiet time one morning, in January, the Lord asked me to trust him and go back to take the tests. (remember my blog about the skin cancer? Yeah, I’m still learning) So, there I was sitting in the docs office as she read to me my results. Another furious camp of fibroids had now pretty much destroyed my uterus and some other foreign mass was taking over the left ovary. I kind of just stared at her. She told me that she was going to take me to surgery very soon to remove the uterus, that failing ovary and run test to make sure the mass was not cancerous. Yeah, that pretty much was what I now call, “The day that sucked big time.”

Sometimes trusting God does not let you process your situation. Sometimes trust is a rush of placing it all straight away into his hands with no questions asked. I didn’t call the prayer hot line or plan a fast. Maybe I should have. I just didn’t. I just looked over at God and nodded. Well, of course I freaked out and cried in-between but honestly, I had the reality of nowhere to go but to God. Trusting God doesn’t always look like healing, hope and daisy’s. It comes with a strain and an ache but ends with pure relief and peace. This isn’t written to make a great blog. It really is to bring forth a hope in those that find themselves more moved to fight trust then to ride with it. We can spend our whole lives trying to trust God. I am now way more concerned that He trusts me.

I remember watching Justice sleep that night of “the day that sucked big time.” I had no idea what lay ahead for us. I didn’t know if I had a fight on my hands, and I certainly didn’t want him to suffer watching me fight it. So I sat there for a long time and just reviewed my life and my love for God. I can tell you that I have never felt so right with God as in those moments.

My first DIVE school of 2011 started 4 days later. I had scheduled the surgery for the day after the school ended. As my students were flying in my doctor called to tell me that I had to go into surgery immediately! The scare for cancer heightened by a ready to rupture ovary! Superwoman that I am had to fight confusion and turn my situation into a teaching tool. My friend Jenn Johnson was coming in as our guest speaker and I called her to tell her that the week was going to be a doozey! Jenn is so full of faith and certainty, she declared some amazing things and just voiced peace. Peace came again. So, while my school was in session and handed off to Jenn to teach it, I went ahead and checked myself into the hospital and trusted my life into the results of God's. Something happened on the way to trusting God. I found many things in those moments. I found out that pastors, (because I have the best) are really warriors in disguise. I found out that real true friends are the ones that stick closer than a brother. I realized that doctors are anointed and the strangers I just met and mentored were my choir of angels.

There were hilarious moments I apparently had while on some awesome medication and I guess felt the need to witness and encourage the nurses to never give up on their dreams. I loved hearing that about myself. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. I have felt such abundance in God. The test results came back completely benign and cancer free. That relief breath-taking. Yet, I left without one thing I had loved most about being a girl. I was no longer worthy of saying I had a womb. I was now truly barren. I pondered for hours the years of feeling that Isaiah 54 was my scripture to teach. How do we sing like we have something when we do not? How many women’s events did I teach that in? How many songs did I write about the barren womb becoming whole and productive? It’s a lot to think about and there are many things I do not know how to verbalize quite yet. What I know is that although trusting God with what comes is not an easy journey, it is the best way to walk it out. It is actually a miraculous way to walk it out.

Our nation's money declares that we TRUST IN GOD. The sad truth is that most of us don’t even know how. The quandary isn’t how we got like that but more why we stay like that? I have been stunned seeing so many Christians need to stay in control while their lives and our world gets more out of it. I held onto my stuff too tightly, and when I finally said enough, everything changed. It’s no picnic but it’s a powerful sense of freedom that’s found when you are no longer in control and God is.

My up hill journey now is to live with what God allowed. How do I do that? Trust. There will be days I long for a do-over and those that I will not think much about it. There will also be days I will call Jenn Johnson and have her pray for me in faith for a new uterus just cuz God can! There will be many days I simply just praise the Lord. Mostly though, I will walk on, finish the race (cancer free I might add)! I will gaze at my beautiful boy because every 5 minutes he stuns me. I will write a few thousand more songs that may or may not touch Nations but for sure will touch the Lord’s heart. I will love and be loved by those God sets around me because I’m worth that. I will drive my niece, whose living with me, crazy leaving notes about her stupid flat iron being left on, and watch my Gladiolas bloom in the back yard. I will push my heart over and over toward this amazing God who is worthy of all my thoughts and stares. You see, something happens when you trust God. You get more of him and less of you.

Trust Him today. At least give it a try.
Rita