Trust is a four letter word

Trust.

This is truly a four letter word to me right now.

Last week I hosted a group of beautiful, yet broken, women to discuss the book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. One woman, whose divorce had already finalized, threw out a statement to which all of us could wholeheartedly relate.

She said to the group, "I don't even trust myself anymore!"

Yep. Me either.

So this morning Dr. Ron Martoia visited The Orchard Church with a message specifically for me - all about trust. His message started with the story from Matthew 8:23-27. In the story Jesus told his disciples to get into a boat so that they could go to the other side of the lake. Dr. Martoia related this trip across the lake as a period of transition - of uncertainty, as the disciples were uncertain and had made all sorts of excuses as to why they should not follow blindly. He asked them to leave the predictability of their lives and the safety of the shore and step onto a boat where there was no predictability, and safety was sketchy. While Jesus took a nap, a storm came upon the disciples and they freaked out, calling out for Jesus to save them from drowning. He woke up and scolded them for their lack of faith, and then he calmed the storm.

Powerful, powerful imagery for my life.

Dr. Martoia says that our lives are full of assumed predictability - safety. That ecotonic times - times of transition or change or the in-between spaces - are the times when we aren't sure where we are going to land, but if we don't adapt we are going to die. Not moving forward due to fear of change will only paralyze us and make us vulnerable to stagnation or worse - suffocation or drowning.

I was also able to relate to Dr. Martoia on a personal level. He spoke of a specific incident where he was in-between, and during this time it dawned on him that he had been moving at such a fast pace that his ego began to get used to and thrive from human-approval. Being a church leader, public speaker, author, etc., the attention gets addicting. He had to make some pretty scary decisions about his career that included the possibility of losing a lot of what he had acquired, and his ego was like Nooooooooo! What if we lose it all??? I know that admitting to ego for a man like him is probably a humbling experience now, but he used this story to show me that he knew what I was struggling with.

All I could think of was ME TOO! There was a time in my life not too long ago when I had my finger on the pulse of our school and reading instruction in our district. Where I had an opportunity to speak at regional conferences about educational topics, write for national newsletters and internationally-read education websites, and write fiction for fun. I had started making a name for myself in the world of education, and I had hopes of being asked to speak more frequently, write often, and share what I had learned with as many educators as possible. The attention was heady! That's always been me. Ego had definitely "gotten in the way of God trying to shine through". At that time in my life, God was the furthest from my mind than He had ever been!

And then I had to make one of the hardest choices in my career. For several years I've felt the tug away from public education. I needed time to not be distracted by the everyday grind of the data, planning, grades, colleagues, and kids. So I took a leave of absence a year ago to homeschool my own children. Unfortunately, Satan thought that would be a really good time to distract me with a divorce, but thankfully I straightened myself out in January and started really listening to what God is pulling me to do. And just a few weeks ago, I resigned from my job permanently.

This time of transition is a time of adaptation and creation for me. I continue to listen to God's whispers to me during my open times. I pray that my open times are often and lengthy because I have taken a leap of faith during an already-turbulent time in my life. I no longer want to be that "elephant with amnesia living in an ant hole". I've decided to follow Jesus blindly into the boat, knowing full well that he will provide for me and for my children.

Namaste.