Tag: faith

About Faith

“The just shall live by faith.” “For we walk by faith, not sight.” “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” “And without faith it is impossible to please him.” “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things we cannot see.” This biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1.

Faith, according to dictionary.com, is: “confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof.”

I have been a believer for many, many years, based on having asked Jesus to forgive my sins and asking Him to be my Savior and Leader. Faith comes in believing that if you repent and ask for forgiveness, He grants forgiveness (1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”). But, is that enough? Is that all there is?

Truly living the life of a believer is living in faith and trust of the One who has forgiven you. That first step of faith is all-important, but it is just THE FIRST STEP! You must then learn to trust Him (Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”).

TRUST HIM! Well, if I am trusting Him to save me from Hell and take me to Heaven, that’s a BIG trust, right? Yes, but sometimes we find it more difficult to trust in the day-t0-day things that we encounter than in our eternal destination. Why is that?

Can I trust Him when people in my life disappoint me? Can I trust Him when I am afraid? Can I trust Him when I get bad news? Can I trust Him with my earthly future? “Just have faith”, they say. I say, “it is not that easy”, even though it should be.

We must learn to trust Him with the daily things. How do we do that? Well, I am going to share with you what I am learning, so come along on my journey!

Proverbs 3:5-6 is pretty clear when it says “Trust in the LORD with ALL your heart.” Trusting with all your heart leaves no room for doubt. When you sit on your dining room chair, do you have any doubt at all that it will not collapse? When you go out to start your car, do you have any doubt that when you put the key into the ignition and turn, that it will start? This NO DOUBTING is what this means. ALL YOUR HEART!

Then, there is the go-with phrase “and do not lean on your own understanding”. This is a tough one for me. I am an analyzer. I am a thinker and I like to think that I am reasonably intelligent. But, the Lord has been showing me in recent days and weeks that I cannot trust my own understanding. This is really a difficult lesson for me. But you see, if I trust my own understanding, that means I am not trusting God with my WHOLE heart! Deductively, if I trust God with ALL my heart, that doesn’t leave room for trusting anything or anyone else and it definitely doesn’t leave room for fear or the “what ifs”.

So, I began looking back at my life…years of looking back. I see two basic avenues: He has been faithful and good to me; and, many, many times I have been anything but faithful. He has been faithful when I wasn’t faithful. He has blessed me even though I didn’t deserve blessing. And the trouble in my life has largely been brought on by the times that I “leaned on my own understanding”.

So, if these are the two choices: Trust Him with ALL my heart, OR, lean on my own understanding…and I don’t want history to repeat itself, I will NOT lean on my own understanding, right? So let’s look at the day-to-day issues. We all have areas of our life that make us wonder what God is doing. We want to see the future. We want to see that it all turns out o.k. But, look back at the biblical definition as well as the dictionary.com definition: what is the common theme? Faith is having confidence in what we hope for without sight and not based on proof. There is no fear in confidence.

Dwelling on fear and the “what ifs” is a detriment to a life of faith (I am currently working on a post about the “what ifs”). It is impossible to say you trust God if you are concerning yourself about the “what ifs”. Remember, your WHOLE HEART!

My best advice to you is to make two lists: first, remembrances of God’s faithfulness to you in the past. There are several times in the Old Testament that God’s people set up “altars of remembrance” so that they could remind themselves and their children of God’s faithfulness.

Philippians 4:8-9 says “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” The second list is truths from God’s Word. A list of Who and what is TRUE, HONEST, JUST, PURE, LOVELY, of GOOD REPORT, VIRTUOUS, and PRAISEWORTHY will crowd out any room for doubt and worry!

Preparing both of these lists will take time, but it will be time well spent and an investment into your faith journey and your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. I am going to commit to sit down and write down my own “altar of remembrances”. This will be a list that when I am struggling, I can go to and remind myself of the times in my life that He has been faithful, even though I didn’t know at the time what He was doing.

Secondly, I am going to sit down and make a list of Truths on which to meditate…mostly about the Truth of Who God is. These lists will be readily available to me when I need to fill my mind with truth and to crowd out the doubt and fear and the “what ifs”.

In closing, I leave you this: He is the One Who knows the future. I can’t see even one moment ahead of the one I am presently living. Doesn’t it make sense to trust the One Who is already there and knows what it holds? Doesn’t it make sense to fill our minds with Truth and crowd out the fear and the “what-ifs”?

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From Despair to Hope

I use this photo as a real life example of the contrast of death of a dream and the beauty of the small gifts in life.

We all deal with disappointments in life. Sometimes it feels like some of us have to deal with more disappointment than others. There are many things that can disappoint us. Our lives might not be turning out how we had envisioned they would. Perhaps, a devastating blow comes out of nowhere, like the loss of love, job or another sudden loss. But, I believe there is one truth about disappointments that we all share: How we view life’s disappointments will determine how we recover.

This post is kind of an “aside” to my previous post “Death of a Dream” Parts 1 and 2 and yet it is also a continuation. Death of a dream is one cause of disappointment, as it has been in my case. However, there truly are many causes of disappointment, some of which I have named above, but I know there are probably as many causes as there are people out there!

But, whatever the cause, disappointment left unchecked can lead to sadness, depression and despair. However, disappointment can also spur you on to a new vision, a new plan, and a new hope. It’s all in how you see it and your determination not to live there.

Now I know that some disappointments are much more difficult to deal with than others. The disappointment that led me to write my “Death of a Dream” posts was devastating and life-altering to me. It caused me much pain, many tears, and a feeling of hopelessness.

The sunset, depicting the end of one day…with the hope of a new day just hours away.

Thankfully, that sadness and hopelessness has worked its way into the ability to see and develop a different dream, or many dreams. One way that happened for me was to take the advice of someone very near and dear to me. In general terms, their advice was to accept what is and not expect anything more than what is. For instance: a dog will always act like a dog and never like a bird; a cow will not act like a horse, and a bull will never act like a kitty cat. So, I had to see my situation for what it was and learn to accept what was.

This was not an easy task. The dreams of “what could be” will linger as long as you give them life. When I determined that the dream of what could be was truly dead, it then freed me up to accept what is and to make a new dream based on that reality. I suppose that is survival mode kicking in?

There has been a running joke with some people who know me. My blood type happens to be B+…and it has been the joke how perfect that is because I have a “be positive” personality…most of the time. However, when my dream of what could be died, I felt no positivity…only sadness and disappointment.

But, being who I am, I could not live there. First, I am a daughter of the King of Kings and I believe in His sovereignty. This means that I believe He loves me and that He has a plan for me. His Word tells me that He will work all things together for my good and for His glory (Romans 8:28). So, when disappointment comes…and it will, I am human and must process it with my human emotions. However, my human emotions are not the last word.

I believe that if my God allows something in my life, even if I don’t know the purpose for it, I must trust Him. I must believe that He knows what He is doing. I can’t, as a mere human, see all that He is working on and I have to leave “being God” to God!

So, how do I do this? First, I fill my mind with Truth that reminds me that this was allowed into my life for some reason. It is what it is and so I must now find a way to move on. That “moving on” can take a short amount of time, or it can take a very long amount of time. But, my mind is key to my recovery. Philippians 4:8 puts it like this: “...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think on these things.”

Sunrise…the hope of a new day has dawned…however, what will be is still a bit foggy…

Once my mind has settled on the fact of what is…I now move to the “what can be” stage. In my situation, the death of one of my dreams was quite devastating to me, but as the weeks and months have passed, I have found a new way to live without that particular dream. It has freed me up so much to see little things as blessings….little individual dreams, if you want to see it that way.

Another much lesser example has happened this week. Besides being a writer at heart, I am also a photographer. Perhaps this is because I would describe myself as a visual person. Anyway, I often give photographic gifts to those I love.

I had a particular gift in mind and in order to make that gift I needed to locate some pictures I had taken in 2012 (not only 8 yeas ago but 3 computers ago!). I have searched through every device I have looking for these six photographs. Today, I finally had to come to the realization that I was not going to find them. So, now what?

I decided that I will just have to go to the places I took the original photographs and retake them…and then I thought, “Who knows? Maybe the new photos will even be better than the originals.” And then, hope dawned! It occurred to me that I could expand on what I had done in the past and even perhaps this could turn into a project that others might like to own as well! Amazing! Now instead of thinking of the drudgery of having to recreate something I had already created, I am excited at the prospect of creating something MORE than I had originally created!

That’s how HOPE works, at least for me. It’s a strange journey from sadness and despair, past anger, through mourning, to acceptance, and eventually to a new plan with new hope!

I hope in some small way, this post has been an encouragement to you. If it has, please comment below and let me know! That will be an encouragement to me!

I’m BAAACK!

Hi everyone! WOW! Seems like ages since I was able to post on my blog and I have really missed the outlet! Writing has always been such a wonderful way to dump what was on my mind…a way of release and somehow, writing by hand on a piece of notebook paper that gets lost in a sea of other papers just isn’t the same.

So, in a nutshell and hopefully without including all the emotional trauma I have felt, I will tell you “where I have been”. Several weeks ago it became apparent that my more than ten-year-old MacBook Pro was having issues….so I began attempting to back up my data (yeah, yeah…I know, I should have been much more diligent!). I tried three different methods but none of them would/could complete the process of backing up.

I felt panicked because on my hard drive were 15-20 partially finished manuscripts of books not yet published, as well as a multitude of ideas for books not yet started. Also on my hard drive of utmost importance to me were legal and financial documents for our farm and a whole host of other impossible-to-replace documents. But, it was the unfinished books that were eating at me!

It eventually became apparent that the computer was dying, and it took its final breath even though I felt like I was giving her CPR! I was devastated. My husband, who does IT for a large corporation works on PCs and not on Apple products…and suggested that I go with a PC so that if something happens to it, he can fix it…so that’s the route I decided to go for now.

However, that didn’t fix the loss of data. I contacted a couple of my nephews who know a lot about the computer world and it was suggested that I find a local recovery company, especially after Microcenter charged me fifty bucks to tell me they couldn’t help me and that they needed to send it to their recovery company for a grand total of “at least” $1300!!! O my! I thought I would faint.

Thankfully, a week later, I had a recovery disk in my hand for a little over $400 and the assurance that they were able to recover all my data! I was elated! Then, my husband found a wonderful HP professional laptop on eBay and I got it for $375 (thanks to birthday gifts and a temporary loan from my son)! So, I am now back up and running…kind of!

So, yesterday, when I was finally able to get on my blogsite, I discovered that I had tons of messages from people who found my blog and were kind enough to leave comments of how my posts encouraged, entertained and intrigued them! It was so encouraging to me that I feel as though new life’s blood is coursing through me and I just want to get back to sharing my journey!

Some upcoming topics will be more posts on my journey on the death of my dream; new life expectancy here on the farm; where I go from here; and so much more! So stay tuned! There will be much more to make you laugh and cry and maybe even scratch your head in amazement or wonder. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey! Hope you enjoy your stay.

One note: I have been putting off the launch of my new website because of the lack of a computer…but it’s coming. Not sure what to do about my calendars that I had planned to sell since we are already almost at the middle of December. But, watch for it!

www.dianeorrauthor.com!

Death of a Dream –Part 2

It was suggested to me by a friend that perhaps I could chronicle and share my journey through this time. I think I will take her up on that. I’m not sure how it will go, or how many “parts” there will be, but I am certainly willing to share so, if by something I am going through, I am able to help someone else going through something similar.

I don’t mean to imply that the death of my dreams is any more or less important or devastating than the death of your dreams. I just know that writing helps me process and if writing it down helps me, then perhaps it will help someone else, even if all the variables aren’t the same.

So stay tuned… or not. Either way, I will be writing my way through this processing of healing.

The first thing I want to dive into is for me, there are a couple of different types of dreams. As I said in my original post, there are dreams that just plain aren’t going to come true in any form or fashion. Then, there are dreams that won’t come true in the way that I dreamed them, but with some alterations, either in thinking or circumstances, may still resemble my dream.

Depending on which dream is on my heart at the moment demanding the most of my emotional resources at the time, the mourning will look different. For the dreams I’ve dreamed all my life that just aren’t going to come true, either by the fault of my own choices or the fault of another’s choices, the mourning is the deepest pain.

For the dream that must change, whether a little or a lot, but some semblance of that dream can remain, the mourning is different: still very painful, but some part of my brain knows that it’s not a total loss. So when you have the loss of multiple dreams in both these categories, the mourning is truly a mixed bag of emotion and thought processes.

Another aspect that I want to dive into during this introductory phase is truth. I come into this phase of my life with the basic knowledge that 1) God is sovereign; 2) I am not alone; 3) He works all things together for my good and His glory; 4) God’s word is truth; 5) I am loved by my Creator; 6) This world is not my home, so everything I go through while I am here is just temporary.

So, I invite you to come along for the journey. Subscribe, if you’d like, so that you don’t miss the posts. Feel free to comment and if something I say helps you, please feel free to share that, too. It would be an encouragement to me!

Death of a Dream

I am no different than the rest of you. I had plenty of dreams about what my life would be. Some of those dreams were based on who I was becoming; some of those dreams were based on role models I had; and some of those dreams were just whimsical wishes of a young girl.

Then, LIFE HAPPENS! Sometimes gradually and sometimes suddenly, some of those dreams of what “would/could be” are dashed, slashed and shattered…or at the very least changed in a way so that we barely recognize them. I am no stranger to broken dreams. How we deal with those changes literally makes us or breaks us!

Sometimes the dreams that are shattered can be pieced back together. They may not look like they once did, but nevertheless, they still resemble the dreams we dreamed. Other dreams must be abandoned or traded in for different dreams.

I am currently dealing with the dashing of several dreams. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Some of the dreams I am trying to learn to let go…recognizing that God is literally prying my fingers open that are holding those dreams…some are dreams that I have held most of my life. Some of the dreams I am trying to learn to let go are recent dreams that in part, have come true, but maybe not turning out exactly how I had envisioned or hoped they would.

The first step in dealing with the dashing of my dreams is mourning. I have cried so many tears this week there were times I thought I’d have no more tears to cry. There were times I couldn’t even speak or even think without shedding tears. The verse “Weeping may stay for overnight, but there is joy in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b CSB) has been rolling over and over in my head…only it’s been more like “joy comes after mourning”. ..hopefully!

The death of a dream…let alone the death of several dreams, as I have experienced this week, is not only deep emotional pain, it is physical pain. And, not only that, it is spiritual pain and it is mental pain.

I have been reminded of the verse in Hebrews where we are told that Jesus says “I will never leave you or forsake (abandon) you”. And 1 Peter 5:6-7 says “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.” (CSB)

The psalmist’s words “I am weary from my groaning;
with my tears I dampen my bed and drench my couch every night. My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies — Psalms 6:6-7 (CSB), have definitely described me this week. Who are my enemies? Well, I have found that I can be my own worst enemy. I cling to my dream, to the hurt, and to expectations and have a tendency to protect myself from the one perceived of causing that hurt and loss of dream.

Now today, I think I am beginning to come out of the mourning phase. Does it still hurt to be forced to let go of my dreams? YES!!! Absolutely it still hurts. However, the second step I am experiencing in dealing with the death of my dreams is acceptance.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, I am realizing that in the case of a couple of my dreams, I have done just that! I have continued to fight for and expect specifically one of my dreams to somehow magically materialize even though it has been quite evident for years that it isn’t going to happen. So, I am now faced with the task of accepting that it’s not meant to be.

How do I do that? Well, I’m not exactly sure, but one way is to continue to speak truth to myself that I am loved and that the One Who created me and to Whom I have given my life, love and trust has promised to work all things together for my good and for His glory. Romans 8:26-28 says “In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (CSB)

So, those nights when my prayers aren’t even understandable words and phrases, the Holy Spirit intercedes for me in my weakness. And that even though I do not understand why my dreams cannot be…God promises to work ALL things for my good. I cannot see the future. I do not know what it holds but I know Who holds the future (I hear the old hymn playing in my mind as I write this.) and I know He holds my hand.

So, first is mourning and then acceptance. But what kind of a life is it when you just accept and deal with what you cannot change? Honestly, in my opinion, not a great life. So what’s next?

When raising children, we call it “redirection”. When they can’t have something they want, just taking it away and slapping their hands isn’t really a very loving gesture and teaches them nothing. But when we can redirect their attention to something else, something that will take the place of what they can’t have, maybe even something BETTER, then they learn to accept and deal with it and move on. MOVE ON! That’s next. But HOW?

For an adult, especially an adult who lives by faith, it’s called renewing your mind…renewing MY mind! Romans 12 talks about renewing your mind so that we may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2).

One way I have found to renew my mind is to redirect its focus. Philippians 4:6-7 say “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (CSB). So instead of dwelling on what I can’t have…i.e., my dying or dead dreams, I can pray and petition God, with thanksgiving, understanding that in doing so, I will have His peace and my heart and mind will be guarded.

Another step in this renewal process, after prayer, is what I choose to think about. For the past several days, I have mourned the loss of my dreams and those thoughts have consumed my mind. But Philippians 4:8 says “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable ​— ​if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy ​— ​dwell on these things.” (CSB)

So the next part of renewal is what I choose to dwell on. This verse says whatever is true. What is true? What is. Not what I wish was…but what IS! Other things to dwell on are things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable. I don’t know about you, but I am a list maker…and obviously a writer…and my brain deals better with information written down. I am going to take this idea of the “renewal of my mind” and what I dwell on a step further and make a list of things that fit the criteria in this verse. I might find, as you may also, that there are plenty of things in my life that I can dwell on that will be better than dwelling on what I have lost.

Proverbs 17:22 says “A joyful heart is good medicine,
but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” (CSB). Well, I can tell you that I have certainly had a broken spirit this week and that broken spirit has presented physical symptoms: isolation, inability to concentrate, pessimism, anger, irritability, and many others. So, if the flip-side is joy…where can I find joy?

Nehemiah 8:10 says “Do not grieve, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.”(CSB). I can make the choice to leave the grieving behind…because it is grieving the death of something precious…and allow the joy of the Lord to be my strength. He is the giver of all good gifts: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” — James 1:17 (CSB)

So, what good and perfect gifts has He given to me in my life that I can dwell on rather than on what I have lost? It will be different for each of us, but for me several come to mind: first and foremost is my relationship with the God of the universe, and my precious children and grandchildren are definitely joy-bringers in my life! Writing gives me joy. My farm gives me joy: new life, life cycles, planting and bountiful harvest and even physical labor…and even if how that farm looks in the future changes…it is still a wonderful gift that I could never have even dreamed of when I was younger.

So, let’s recap: How am I going to deal with the death of my dreams? 1) allow myself to grieve, to mourn the loss; 2) accept what is; 3) renew my mind and by a) prayer and b) redirection of thoughts; and 4) find the joy.

I hope putting these thoughts down in an orderly fashion helps someone as much as it has helped me. I need reminders. It will still be a struggle. I may go back and forth between grieving and acceptance more than once. But by renewing my mind and finding the joy, I am confident that I will be able to leave the dreams in the past and embrace the joys that await!

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