Facets of Faith

Conversations about life, faith, and friendship.

Is it really safe to be me?

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Welcome to FACETS of Faith and our exploration of vulnerability through women’s stories of strength and resilience.  I (Tracy) can’t wait to share Julie Jeffrey with you. She is beautiful in spirit and has eyes you could wade through – stunning.  I find it interesting the original photo she selected hid her face.  (She didn’t know what image God had led us to use for this series.) I took the liberty of choosing a different photo of her, because she is beautiful and her smile radiates. I felt God wanted you all to see her, really see her.  See her physically. See her in her story. See her in the glorious redemption God has brought in her life. (Her pic is at the end of the piece.)

There is something powerful about redemption. It’s where God’s glory is revealed and hope is breathed anew in each of us. When we see what IS possible with God, we believe Him more and more for big things in our own lives.  So sit back and read for yourself about the power of God at work in one woman’s life.  We have a big God, my friends!  Truly, One we can’t fathom even as we can know Him personally.  Meet my sweet friend Julie as she shares her story with strength and dignity.

 

The easiest way for me to answer the question Is it really safe to be me is to open with a scripture I wear on my heart like a married woman wears a ring on her hand! “God is within her, she will not fall.” Psalm 46:5.  Getting vulnerable with God is pretty easy for me.  Getting vulnerable with other people, much harder.

To put it simply, I am a child of God. I am a single mother. I am a woman with a heart bigger than the whole outdoors but, and this is the hard part: I am also a recovering addict. A thankful, grateful recovering addict. I have heard the labels: junkie, druggie, loser, crackhead. You name it, I have probably been called it. Did it hurt? Absolutely. Even in my haze and fog the labels cut like a knife. Because that is not who I really am. That is not God’s plan or purpose for me. I realized that when I spiraled out of control and stopped eating. When my then 5-year-old daughter looked at me and told me, “I miss my smiling mommy. I wish you would eat again.” When my dad said he was going to be burying his firstborn daughter in 6 months’ time, and he didn’t want to be around me because it would hurt less to lose me, I knew this was not the life I was supposed to be living. Those, along with the demons in my head used to tell me I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t worthy. I hid from my feelings of inadequacy and then felt ashamed because I used. Deep inside I knew that was not my purpose in life. I would cry. I would pray. I would beg my family not to give up on me, but I had given up on myself.

Then there was God. He never ever gave up on me. I know He was with me when I had used too much and should have overdosed, yet still lived. I didn’t know it then, but I do know now. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Psalm 34:18  I was as brokenhearted as a person could be.

Little did I know, all I had to do was cry out to Him. He was always waiting, always ready. I had to surrender. I had to cry out to Him. And I did.  One night in February of 2018 I decided I was ready to be done. I had literally been physically beaten, assaulted in a violent way. I had lied to family to get money to pay these dealers back. I wanted to be free of this ever-tightening grip that addiction, and all that came with it, had on me and my life. I looked down at my little girl with tears in her eyes, my teenage son was just done with me. I walked into the bathroom.  I got down on the floor and for a good 30 minutes, I cried and prayed. I reached out to God, to Jesus to anyone listening . The prayer was to take my life or take this addiction. After 30 minutes of that, I got up and went out to where my kids were. I hugged my son who tried to shrug away from me. I hugged my little girl who held me tighter than anyone ever has, and we went in and laid down. I woke up the next morning with a purse full of pills, drugs, and paraphernalia and could have easily started the whole cycle over again. In my heart, I heard, “You know what to do.”  So, without hesitation, I disposed of every pill, every drug, every item related to it and called my family to admit to them I had a problem that I could not deal with by myself.

My sister immediately came out, and we set up a family meeting that weekend. I prayed every single morning, noon, and night that whole week. I didn’t use. I felt a sense of peace I had never experienced before, and I now recognize as God’s love and spirit. By the time the weekend came, I had already been eating and sleeping. I had been totally transparent with my family. I had attended 4 NA meetings that I had to walk to because I had no car at the time. I also started therapy. The meeting was not the negative experience I thought it was going to be.  I don’t remember the exact words that were said or who spoke first, but what does stick out to me is my uncle. A man of so few words and a man who hides his emotions, he had tears in his eyes when he told me he had been distancing himself from me because it was too painful to watch me slowly dying. He told me the story of how I had pneumonia as a little baby and he laid by my crib every night just to make sure I was breathing. Then he offered me something that changed my life even more: the chance to ride with him to church every Sunday! It was a small, beautiful church on a hill and when I walked through the doors, I felt surrounded by love and kindness. “Three things will last forever-faith, hope and love-and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Every person in that tiny church seemed so happy to see me, to meet me. I have never felt such an outpouring of love. I knew I wanted more. I even asked the Pastor how to become a Christian! I got my sponsor there in the church, started going to their Thursday Christian recovery group, and eventually I even got a job and saved up enough money to buy a car. Once that happened, I wasn’t just at the Sunday services, I went to ladies Bible study on Mondays, Wednesday service, Christian 12 step on Thursday, and Sunday services. I just could not get enough of any of it. God, the people, the messages, the worship songs all were what I needed to keep walking in victory. My little girl came with as well, and her life has changed too. Once my family saw the changes were sticking, some of them even started coming. My uncle, my brother-in-law and I all got baptized by the Pastor!

The journey to who I am now started February 18, 2018, my sober date. I have so much more to learn though! Jesus is my Lord and Savior. He saved my life from certain death, but even more than that, through him and through the love and support of the people at the church and the different programs, I am growing every day. I am moving forward toward the person I was created to be. I am not just staying sober, but I am coming alive. Learning, growing, changing. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.”  2 Corinthians 5:17

That is how I feel, brand new. I love Jesus. I know Jesus loves me! He loves us all so much that He gave his life for us. I well up with tears when I think about that. Knowing how much He gave for all of us makes me strive to live according to the 10 Commandments and God’s word. I am not perfect, not even close, but I have a heart for the Lord, and my daughter and I will serve the Lord. Maybe, just maybe, some of my loved ones who haven’t done so yet, will also serve the Lord too. I am thankful, grateful and blessed! I am a child of God, and I am not my mistakes. I am God’s masterpiece, but also a work in progress.

Join us in the conversation on FACETS of Faith’s Facebook page. Share how Julie’s story has impacted you. I’m sure it would bless her to know.

Need help?

If you need help with a substance abuse problem, seek help and support.  Together, with Christ, recovery is possible.  Julie is one of God’s walking miracles that prove that very fact.  Many churches offer recovery support, as do Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. You are not alone. Immanuel, God is with you on this journey.

 

Finding Freedom on the Road to Calling

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Hey friends! I hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday!  This month, we have each been digging into freedom and calling, and how those two have played out together in our lives.  I pray that you will join in along with us and see where God might be bringing you towards freedom.  Check out Tracy and Jen‘s posts from the last couple weeks, and next week, please come back to welcome our guest Charlotte!  I am trusting that God will speak to you through the words we have each shared over the past month, and that ultimately we will be able to freely live out our calling.

 

Freedom on the Road to Calling (M. Abbott)

 

The last couple months have been so heavy.  Part of me wants to explain, but part of me believes a lot of us feel it.  There is this pandemic, the stress of changed life rhythms, sickness, racism, and so much injustice, everything just feels so, so heavy.  Our world is more connected than any other period in history.  Take one minute to watch the news or to scroll social media, and you will find at least one more thing to add to the list of things needing care.  Right now, the list of things needing care or concern far exceed my emotional capacity.

Squishy-hearted Spiritual Gifts

I really started digging into my faith in college.  I remember at some point taking a spiritual gifts assessment, where I am sure it ranked my gifts, but I really only remember that mercy was at the top.  It wasn’t surprising.  I always felt kind of squishy-hearted; it was something I could see in my life, and thought I understood how to use.  A few years into my walk with God, there was a period of time where I remember sitting on the front porch of the house just crying.  I cried for hours.  I came back inside and got a tissue, some water, and went back out and cried more.  There was just so much suffering, and so much to care about.  So many people needing love, and care.  It was heavy.  It was paralyzing.  I remember praying and asking God to take it all away.  In that moment, I wanted any other gift; mercy was just too much.

For a while, I felt like God had essentially just taken away the gift.  I was still me. I still was keenly aware of suffering and injustice, but my heart was not overwhelmed with mercy.  I wasn’t numb, but I wasn’t an emotional mess.  Over the next few years, God slowly brought it back, little by little.  I was working in a really difficult placement during those years.  Among all of the good and beautiful, my friends and community were experiencing poverty, abuse, loneliness, human trafficking, sickness, and so much confusion.  So much more than I was processing that day sitting on my front porch at college, but somehow, much less paralyzing.  God had given me space to grow into my gifting.  

Finding the Freedom

I recently retook the spiritual gifts assessment.  Wisdom, mercy, and discernment.  I look at that combination today, and I praise God for giving me something to balance out all the emotions.  I’m not sure if that was His plan, but I see His grace in it.  Even years down this road, mercy is an easy one for me to let get out of balance.  There is so much “heavy”, so why would an abundance mercy ever be a problem?  Looking back at my 20-year old self sitting on the porch utterly paralyzed by mercy, I can see the freedom provided in boundaries.  I needed space to be free to grow into my gifting.  Instead of trying to run the marathon, I needed to crawl, then walk, then jog, and then train for the marathon.  

In this season of “heavy”, I have to work to keep myself in a place of freedom.  There is so much to take in, so much to act on, and so little time of restoration.  How can I care enough simultaneously about my health, the pandemic, racial injustice, my friend’s heartbreak, my friend who is incredibly sick, the human trafficking I heard about on the news, the massive amounts of unemployment…?  I know God cares for them all, and I know my heart was created to care like His, but I just don’t have the capacity.  Regardless of the guilt I feel, the Spirit reminds me I was not made to carry every burden.  

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.”  -1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 11

Our gifts are only good to the point God asks us to use them.  They are empowered by God.  This has been an important reminder for me.  I am one of millions with the gift of mercy.  If I acted on everything in the world requiring mercy, or even just the things I am aware of, I would be of no use to the Lord.  Rather, I am empowered by the Spirit for the service and activities He has for me, just as you are empowered for the service and activities He has for you.  I am thankful for a God who loves me enough to help me find the boundaries that provide me with freedom from guilt, exhaustion, and overwork.  I am thankful that God is working with me to help me find the balance between information and engagement overload, and ignoring everything.

While your gifts may be something entirely different, I believe there is freedom to be found as we grow into our gifting.  Over a lifetime, the way you use your gifts may change once or twice, or hundreds of times, but the same Spirit is there to help you find freedom in using them.  

Where do you need to find freedom as you live out your calling?  Join us in the comments, or on Facebook and let us know!

Signature: Megan Abbott

Freedom on the Road to Calling

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Welcome friends! We’re so glad you’re here! This month  we’re talking about freedom and calling, two things Jesus is very concerned about for us and others.  We hope you’ll check in each week to see what He’s placed on our hearts.  We trust this message is His message, and He has freedom planned and purposed for each of us as we engage with Him.  For those of us walking free, we pray a deeper level of freedom.  For those of us still captive, we pray He sets us free through our calling.

Christ has paid the price of our admission to enter through freedom’s gates.  Let’s walk through every gate He opens.

What is a calling?  According to Merriam Webster, it is a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence.1

As God’s children guided by divine influence, we have a high calling on our lives. Each of us is placed where we are with whom we are for a reason. Our location and vocation are not accidental; they are providentional.  If God establishes our steps (and He does), each paver we walk upon is there for purpose.  Sometimes, the steps He has us take lead to freedom for ourselves.  Other times, those steps are intended to liberate someone else.  Captives are set free along the way in God’s efficient nature─a bit of me, you, we all at once.

Freedom on the Road to Calling (T. Stella)

Recently, I had a client unexpectedly pass away.  It was like a spiritual slap in the face, a wake-up call.  The volume of my tears was large, and I was in absolute shock.  As I processed my feelings, I thought to myself, “I need to pray with more intention.” I always pray for my clients, but this kind man’s passing made me realize I need to pray more and more specifically for them in light of eternity.  Maybe the person we encounter and pray for never comes to know Jesus. But maybe they do.  What if God brought them to me for that specific purpose? What if He’s put someone in your path for that divine reason too? I don’t want to miss that high calling.

Faith is a personal choice. As believers we need to respect where others are on their faith journey. Force feeding someone Jesus is likely to have the reverse effect. Like a baby being coerced to eat smashed squash, they could spit Christ out because we didn’t let them taste and see His goodness for themselves.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t pray for those God has placed in our path, nor does it mean we can’t try to walk out our own lives in such a way as to create curiosity in others.  Side note:  Jesus gave us free will because He wants us to choose Him. Let’s stay out of God’s way and give others the choice to choose Him. Pray and stay out of God’s way. He’ll let us know if and when we need to take action.

I meet a lot of people doing what I do.  I’m a REALTOR®. To say buying and selling a home is an emotional process is a bit of an understatement. The stakes are high and even if the person’s home sale or purchase is for a happy reason, it can be a bit of a roller coaster ride.  Often my job is helping level out the peaks and valleys.  I love getting to celebrate with clients as I’m let into a very treasured life event. It’s sweet and special much of the time. Tears of joy, laughter, and happy dancing, they’re all part of the calling.  (Who said calling had to be all work and no play?)

What I’d never given thought to before becoming a REALTOR® is the amount of ministry opportunities within this career path God has placed me on.  Honestly, until something impacts us (or at least me) we can be oblivious.  As I got into things, I realized people die and their estate needs to handle the selling of their loved one’s home.  Hard! So hard! Those folks need a compassionate person to sit with them in their grief. They likely need someone to help them make decisions, because they’ve already had to make some pretty difficult ones that weigh heavy on the heart.  They need someone who can help them navigate dark waters, with many people often involved who are all dealing with the loss of their loved one in different ways.  Sometimes, we just have conversation human to human. We can leave the home sale talk for later if need be.  Maybe what’s called for in that moment is a shoulder to cry on or ears that can hear their favorite memory of their loved one.  It’s a sacred space.

What sacred space is God calling you to enter?

God gives me women who have had to navigate divorce and need help finding a home.  I’ve made a personal choice I will not proactively market to women or men getting a divorce, because it feels contradictory to the calling God has placed on my life to help married couples work on their marriage and stay together.  But before I was a believer I did get divorced, and so I can certainly understand many of the emotions my clients experience.  It’s another very hard season that needs to be grieved, even if we don’t realize it.  I try to point them to hope.  Hope helps!  I remember one time I was talking with a client in a vacant home for so long Sam got worried for my safety and came to check on me. I was okay, but the one God had placed before me wasn’t. She needed to be heard and God wanted me to listen.  When He uses bits from our bio, His desire is for us to connect.  Those “me too” moments can make all the difference in the world to someone going through something God already helped us through.

What “me too” moment is God calling you to share with someone in need of hope?

There are joyous occasions, newlyweds in need of a home, excited about what the future holds.  It’s so much fun to help them dream and envision building their life together.  Sometimes, they need advice, occasionally it’s about real estate. (Wink, Wink)  Helping people buy homes, in particular, creates a close connection.  You get the opportunity to know someone exceptionally well through the process.  Along the way in the course of natural conversation, people tell you things, personal things.  I have had the best time getting to know people’s stories.  Isn’t that something Jesus would want us to do?  Whatever you do for a living, maybe God is leading you to ask someone to share their story (even if that feels far outside your comfort zone).  You learn some pretty amazing things about people.  Entering others’ story changes ours jobs from a career to a calling.

How is God nudging you to shift your mindset from career to calling?

God once placed it on my heart to do something kind for a person who had been a bit difficult.  Okay. A lot difficult. I’m glad I listened to that still, small voice.  He knew what that person had been through in life.  I had no idea. Clueless with a capital C.  So, I did this thing God asked me to and it caught the person off guard.  Unexpected kindness created an opportunity for another human being to feel safe enough to open up. A lot. Hearing that person’s story softened my heart faster than melting ice cream on a 90 degree day.  I’d say, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”  But perhaps we should in that if there is difficulty dealing with so and so, there must be a reason. If the outside reads hard, the inside is probably hurt.  Life’s tribulations can lead to prickly people, because they’re just about protecting themselves at this point.  That’s what God showed me.  This person was in deep pain. From that point on, I had a completely different thought process about this person.  They hadn’t changed, but I had.

Who is God calling you to see from a different perspective?  What act of kindness can you engage in on their behalf?

If you like to be in control of things, don’t become a REALTOR®.  This job has sanctified me about 1000 times over!  I have control over my actions (on a good day), but I have no control over anyone else’s.  If you play poker but only have half the hand and have no idea what the other player’s cards are, that’s real estate.  I know things to look out for.  I know what SHOULD happen. But I only get to see my client’s piece of the transaction.  I try to have order and process for the things within my control, but there are a lot of players in this real estate game: buyer, seller, 2 agents, 2 attorneys, home inspector, appraiser, sometimes extra family members, and occassionally interfering neighbors. (Oh, the stories I could tell.)  All those other people and their actions, I can’t control one little bit.

God has brought me (and continues to bring me) freedom in this job.  Freedom from letting my emotions boss me around.  Most of the time I do a pretty good job of that now.  Occasionally, I need God’s grace to rush back in and point me back on the path of freedom.  This job has helped me to trust God on a whole new level. We do what we can and give the rest to God. The things that I know to do, I do them. The things I can’t “make happen” make me pray even more fervently.  Sometimes, I get inspiration and direction on how to proceed.  Sometimes, I’m called to sit a spell and let God do what only He can do.  It is a gift (and a relief) to know and believe in my heart that God’s the One in charge of the outcome.

What’s something within your control God is asking you to take action on?  What is at least one area of your calling God is asking you to relinquish control of and trust Him with the outcome?

Just this week I had a moment where I let fear creep into my calling. It wasn’t good.  I was concerned that this or that wouldn’t happen.  And then if that didn’t happen, then this, and this, and this might happen.  My momentary setback was a good reminder that as much as I want to be like Jesus, sometimes I’m like the leper and need some healing along the way myself.

How does God desire to bring healing to you through  your calling?

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance  and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”  Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Emphasis added)

Luke 17:11-19 NIV

 

My prayer is that more times than not you and I will look a little more like Jesus. As we travel along the way walking out the calling God has on our lives that we will never be too busy to pause and “take pity” on someone. We don’t want someone to have to stand from afar off shouting for attention. Like Jesus, He’d want us to be attentive to the ones He places before us.

What if others are “cleansed” because they encountered the love of Jesus through us?  Maybe that means salvation. Maybe that means healing (or the beginning of that journey for them). Shouldn’t we stop?  Jesus was busy, but not too busy to stop for lepers like you and me.

What will we do if we help a lot of people and we don’t always feel appreciated? Remember, the scripture above. Ten were cleansed, but only one came back to thank Jesus.  I’ll speak for myself in this, but I wonder how many times Jesus has done things for me that I never bothered to say “thank you” for. I thank Him, but do I thank Him for everything?  No.

So another person’s gratitude can’t be our motivator if we are Christ’s children. We need to stop because Jesus stops. He stopped for each of us (and He still stops for us when we need to catch up to Him).

What if in that process we are like the leper ourselves?  As we go about our calling and connecting with people along the way, what  if He leads us to someone intended to help bring healing to us? Wouldn’t we hope someone would stop?

As we are going, let’s not forget our high calling to STOP for others.

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Consider spending time with God processing the questions in this piece.  Grab a notebook, pray, write the question, and journal a response.  I pray God will reveal His heart for you and others during that set aside time.

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page. (INSERT LINK)

1 “Calling.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/calling.