What for the future?

I have heard time and again, that God never gives us more than we can carry.  I have to say, I think that is not only untrue, but damaging to people who have more than they can handle happen to them (speaking from personal experience).  I say this because I think that life sometimes actually breaks us, and when that happens God is there to pick us back up and glue us back together, but we will be forever broken from what we were.

I was sick for 10 years,  pretty much living day to day and absent from many things, its a very long time to be unable to live a real life.  I lost my dreams, visions and goals for what the future would be.  The days ran together and I was just happy to make it through each one, it broke something in me.  Then I lost my mom, my mother in law and my stepdad all in one year, and what the illness left, the grief and heartache from those deaths and everything that happened around those deaths, broke the rest of me.  The illness took nearly all of my friendships and many of my family relationships.  the deaths took so much more, until I felt like there wasn't much left and I was just going through the motions.  I have changed so much over these past 11 years, my faith in God and people was left in shambles.  I am slowly finding my way back to health with the help of a wonderful doctor and with that comes the thought 'where do I go from here'?  I still have a lot of emotional healing to do,  there are days when I know I have some PTSD and I have to consciously tamp down the fear of losing anyone else close to me.  Thankfully, I have enough energy and the inner drive to be back in church and back to actively seeking that healing and the close relationship with God and other people that has been missing for a while now.

Now that I am recovering physically, I am able to work full time and slowly build up my fitness level again with training at PKSA Flat Rock.  I am starting to think about making some new goals for the future and realizing that I get to keep living and maybe have a better life that what I originally had planned.

What I want for my future at this point, is to buy a PKSA franchise and become a school owner and Tang Soo Do instructor.  Karate is still something I love and want to share, it is helping bring me back to life and health physically, and has helped lead me back to God as well.  What a powerful thing to be able to share.  I have been praying about it, and I know that if that is where God wants me to go, he will make it happen one way or another.

It helps immensely that looking back over the last 10 or so years, I see when I felt abandoned, hopeless, and alone, God was taking care of me and mine.  When I was broken, he was whole and there, even when I didn't feel him or even really believe he cared.  We always had food, a place to live and family to care for us.  When I was at my sickest Brad was there, and now I am better and able to help when he is still struggling with Lyme disease.  My kids got into WTMC (Washtenaw Technical Middle College - a Charter High School), which has been a fantastic school for both of them.  They are doing well, making me proud to be their mom and humbled at what they are able to accomplish with so little input from me. We finally have our house, everything that we need, and much of what we want.

It's time for me to think about serving now that I am able again.  The plans I (we) had for being missionaries all those years ago ended with illness.  It feels now, that for many reasons, that was not what God wanted, and I was not ready to do that kind of work for reasons that I am only now starting to see.  This time I want to listen more carefully to what He wants, and think less about what I want.  My job is good right now and I am happy here, I can wait on Him, even though I am terrible at waiting.  I made it through 10 years of chronic late stage Lyme, I can make it through waiting on him.

We are going to Southpoint Church's Huron campus (which I heard about through my PKSA school and I am so thankful for that!) and it feels like home.  I leave there each Sunday feeling changed and renewed.  I recently listened to C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" too, that book is quite the eye opener.  I am so glad to be moving forward in life again and finally looking forward to the future and what it brings.  And I know that even if it is not what I hope or want, God will be there for this life and the next.