
While watching the news stories about
the recent tornados in Oklahoma, I started thinking about foundations
and how people rebuild their lives after a tragedy. Many times when
people face a devastating loss or tragedy they ask, “Why would God
allow this to happen?”
Almost eleven years ago, I asked this
same question to the God I had served since I was 12 years old. In
2002 I became a mom for the first time and a few months later I
became a widow. At this time in my life, I was a single parent
without a job. I had chosen to step away from teaching full time to
stay at home with my daughter. I had many hard decisions to make. I
was also grieving and learning how to take care of a baby. I asked
the question “Why?” almost every day. “Why me?” I would ask
God. “I have been serving you faithfully for many years?” My
husband and I had been serving together for many years. Then God
reminded me of a prayer/thought that I had had a few years before
this tragedy. I remember thinking about what it would be like to
live as if you couldn’t breath without Christ, to live as if He was
my oxygen. It was more thought than prayer but I spent a few weeks
thinking about what that would look like and feel like to have such a
mindset. Being a widow and single parent was the journey God took me
on to show me this very mindset. Throughout this journey, I could
see how God was all over it. The financial decisions that were made
that allowed me to purchase a house and car in cash. The part-time
job that just fell in my lap. The wonderful support of my family,
friends and church family. The wonderful woman of God who would step
in and be my “mom” after my mom passed away suddenly. God had
orchestrated all of this before I even knew that I needed it.
During this
journey, I often asked God why and why he chose me. But one thing
that I never questioned was that God was real and that He loved me
with an everlasting love. This is the foundation that was built by
my parents when I was young. I was raised in a family that didn’t
just do church. Jesus permeated our lives. Every struggle, we
prayed for guidance. Every blessing, we prayed thanksgiving, every
decision we prayed for wisdom. My parents served in their church,
they took us to church, and they had church in their home. Every
morning I saw my dad with his Bible and bowl of cereal. My parents
reached out and cared for neighbors and their church family.
This is the foundation that my parents
help instill in me: God is the center of my life and loves me with
an everlasting love. Without this foundation, I would have fallen to
pieces. I would not be healthy mentally or spiritually. God has
been challenging me lately with this: What kind of foundation am I
building in my daughter and stepdaughters lives? Do they see that
Christ is the center of my life? Do they see that I rely on Him
daily? Do they see that He is my oxygen?
Four years ago, I married a wonderful
man and added two other girls to my life. Now as a blended family,
we face new challenges and a new journey of leaning on Him through
good and bad.
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