Guess Not?

Wow, last post was January...I guess I'm not really back to the blogging world.
I've read my last post a few times the past few days and it antimidated me...It's like I want to commit to blogging, but then, there is always something stopping me.
Over the past year and a half I have seen so much of myself that was ugly. Things that God's showing me that needed cleaning up and changing in order to follow His call on my life. I read Christine Caine's book, Can I have and do it all please? and I realized I wasn't focused on His calling on my life. I was afraid, like the whole blogging thing, to commit to it. I felt that if I did, then, I would miss out on something more exciting...when in actuality, it was just the voice of a liar saying that I would miss out-that my calling wasn't good enough, exciting enough, or impactful enough.
God has totally called me to be a strong, confident, loving, patient woman to my husband and daughter and women around me. There is nothing specific like "save the nation of Africa" or "lead a woman's small group on whatever" It's just, "Rachael, be who I called you to be....stop comparing. Stop pretending...Look at how wonderfully I have made you-and use it" I was getting goals mixed up with my purpose. Or doing, doing, with who I am in Christ.
If you know me, you know that Gary and I felt called to Africa. I knew God was working on us then too....When that didn't work out, we were totally lost. We were confused. We were hurt. But mostly, we had no idea what God wanted from us. We thought that Africa was our purpose, but it was just a goal, a serving opportunity to love on the lost. Isn't that every Christian's calling? After we stepped back from noise and confusion, we were able to start over in a way with God. It took a while-lots of testing and trials, and failures to get it quiet enough to hear God's voice.
All I can say is, if you were a fly just chillin in our house during the past year and a half....you would have said to yourself, "how on earth are they going to get through this". But I wouldn't have traded our "valley" for anything. I learned more about myself. I learned that people are people-not God. I learned more about how amazing, but human my husband is, and how important our partnership is for our life. I'm not an expert, infact not even close-I just keep praying God puts people in our life to learn from and watch!
I'm so glad that back in my first year of being saved that Pastor Stovall told us that being a Christian doesn't give you an easy pass for life. Sometimes I think being a Christian makes life harder in ways....but then i look at people not following God's way and say, man they have it HARD!
Anyways, we wouldn't have made it without out God or commitment. First, it took us choosing to believe what God says about us, and then it took being committed to those truths. That was the only way....Pastor Stovall has a blog today actually about commitment and discipline that I really enjoyed. Living the Christian life is choosing to live through commitment and discipline. Two things that I naturally dislike. Thank GOD He's bigger than what I dislike!!!