Patience? What's THAT mean?

Romans 8:25 "25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently."   

      Patience, what does that mean? Well in the last two years I've discovered one thing for sure: patience means different things in different stages of your life!

my Daddy with Jantz 

       26 months ago I started blogging about my journey in faith. A journey, that at the time, was all about waiting on God's timing in starting a family. Through my time 
writing about faith and patience I learned several lessons and not all of them were "easy" to learn. I learned things about listening (LOTS of things about listening in a few months time period!), I learned things about the joy and pain involved in faith and also the "fulfillment" of waiting on God!

      I got my fulfillment and thought my journey with faith was done, then last July I learned that faith and patience mean something entirely different to me. What happened to make me do a 180, you may ask? My father very suddenly passed away. Suddenly faith meant, HOW am I going to deal with this? HOW am I going to recover? WHAT is my mom going to do now? Basically, for me, faith suddenly became a whole list of questions.     

Jantz at 6 months

      My husband and I decided that to answer as least one of those questions, we were taking the plunge and moving across the country back "home" (for me at least).  So last October, we packed up our house and six month old baby and hit the road. We arrived here and moved in with my mom "for a few weeks", and started our job searches. Well to make a long story short, it was three months later before my husband found a job, and that job paid a LOT less then the one he had before; and I'm STILL looking for something to this day. 

      I've found that I am going through a HUGE bout of depression, and have struggled to find any part of "me" hiding deep down. I went through one of those "dark" periods in my faith; a time where I stopped reading His Word, and felt so out of sync that it was like I was a different person. I wasn't bad enough that I needed medications, just bad enough that I wasn't "me" at that time. I will be completely honest with you and tell you that I am not out of this depression yet; but I am much, MUCH better then I was.

      What was it that helped me turn around? Well, I started reading the Bible again, I started really praying again. I still find it hard to know exactly what to pray for, but I'm praying anyways. I've found that, at times, my prayers are just groans to God and telling Him that I didn't know how to pray. I know from past Bible readings that I'm not the only person who's gone through these tough prayer times, the Apostle Paul wrote about it in Romans (8:26) "26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words." The Palms are filled with David's laments and, at times, it even feels like he's ready to give up totally. so I know I'm in good company. And I know that I can find a way out. I even know the way out is named Jesus. I just have to learn a new aspect of faith and patience, a new way to trust in God.

      My little "fulfillment" turned one earlier this month and she is a wonderful blessing. She's a walking testament to my growing faith...a faith that need only be as big as a small seed. 

Jantz at her first birthday party