Dear sisters,
The one thing I am in these letters to you is honest.
This is my leading principle when it comes to being honest.
Offer truth and love without judgment.
I choose to let you in with the deep hope that you too will let someone safe in. That is why I press you to reply to my questions like What is your 2%? When you do, whether to me or someone else safe, darkness is broken. Freedom’s door is opened.
Earlier this week, I spent an hour with my counselor Dan. He knows me well. He knows how to help me build back from my lows. He knows my patterns of deep thinking that sometimes get me lost. He knows the truths to deliver to me so that I can be the strong, kind woman I aim to be.
Dan gave me a line from a book that my bible boyfriend James wrote.
You receive not because you ask not.
I did not know my boyfriend said that. I even had to look up that line to prove it to myself. I am hypersensitive to anything that sounds like the prosperity gospel and that’s what ask not, receive not sounds like to me. But Dan had a good point.
Present your needs to God. Be specific. Write them down. As time passes, look back. What did God say yes to? What did God say no to? This is insight. This helps you write your faith story. This helps you remember, in times of despair, that God says yes to your deepest needs.
God comes through.
This has been one of the BIG adult lessons of my forties. God comes through. I have been through some fire. So have you. The fire burned through my younger woman faith that “everything was always going to be okay” and “if I did my part (i.e. performed well), then, yes, everything was going to be okay.
Honestly, girls, everything isn’t always okay. Your kids wreck you – sometimes for years at a time. Your marriage can look more like a brick wall than a bridge, more often than not. Work exhausts you. You feel lonely. You try hard. Your health kicks your strong self down for the count. Your mind gets lost in circumstances and finds itself sad and panicked.
I am being honest with you.
You better be relating to my dirt and not differentiating yourself from it.
This is one of my rules of friendship and authenticity.
If your gut reaction wasn’t relational, introspective and compassionate,
check yourself.
I check myself every day.
As the fire has burned though my younger woman faith, I am opening the door to new truths to live by that don’t include
- How I see things
- How I think the process should go
- What the outcome should look like
The new truths include
- I may fall but God pulls me back up EVERY TIME.
- He gives me space, but He’d rather live in me that walk next to me.
- The future is something I don’t have to worry about because His current presence evidences to me that He has already taken care of the future.
Here is Dan’s point. (which is also my boyfriend James’ point.)
Present your needs to God. Be specific. Write them down. As time passes, look back. What did God say yes to? What did God say no to? This is insight. This helps you write your faith story. This helps you remember, in times of despair, that God says yes to your deepest needs.
God comes through.
Sisters, God comes through. It may not be in the way you envisioned. It may not reflect the process you wanted or how you thought the glory story should go down.
So often, the process is harder and longer than you thought you could bear. The time waiting for the light to come through the darkness can feel endless and exhausting. For some of us, the time lapse between hardship and break though may bring us to hover over hopelessness.
Even in all of this, we learn that it is His unchanging character to ALWAYS BRING US THROUGH.
EYE TO EYE - NOSE TO NOSE
- HANDS HOLDING YOUR CHIN -
KIND OF BRING YOU THROUGH
I have nothing more to add to that. It’s just true.
Love,
Sasha
IF THIS RESONATED WITH YOU . . . TAKE THE ASK CHALLENGE
Today. Before you go to bed. Write three, specific needs to God with the parameters below. Share them in the comments to this post. We’ll encourage, pray for one another and watch God come through.
Be specific and measurable.
Please don’t say Help me be a more loving spouse or friend or Help me get a raise or bonus at work or Help me get out of depression.
Please say
Help me be a more loving spouse or friend by ________________ (name a few measurable things).
Help me get a bonus at work in the amount of __________________ so that our family or I am able to _________________.
Help me get out of depression by having the courage to share with _______________ so that I can feel that I am not alone. Help me reach out to this person by _________________.
Now that you’ve asked. Talk to God. See the doors He may open as the days, weeks and months pass. We’ll all be praying for one another.
