My Nevada Years

Speaking of Nevada (my earlier post)...

I'd just turned 29 when we moved to the Nevada desert. 

Later, at 31, we moved into an adorable 70 year-old house there in the same town and I should have experienced more happy days inside that sky-colored stucco home. Spring-Pink was sponged over white on the living room walls and there was lots of white trim and even oak floors. We had a big back yard and I planted cosmos which grew like pink, lavender and white stars around the birdbath and reached over my head. And Naomi, at 11, grew up alongside them. Finally I had my own dear old house--I'd wanted one since I was 12.

But I had too many sad afternoons in that house because I wanted what God did not want for me. I was incredibly insecure so I latched onto all sorts of jobs at church. I saw them each as 'ministry' to other people, but really, I used them to give me self-definition and to make me feel good and secure about my sad self.
Not surprisingly, each of those 'ministries' eventually rose up to claw and rip me apart. God had never told me to take on those things, so Grace wasn't there to help me or defend me when I messed up. When people criticized what I was doing, I fell apart because I'd invested all I was into those ministries and I'd invested more than I could afford to lose. My motivation and thinking were all wrong, my foundation was all cattywampus and I stupidly expected ministry to set them--to set everything--right. To patch-up and fill what was missing inside. 

Things got bad. One day there in our little dream home I stood in my living room and did the Scarlet O'Hara bit: "As God is my witness, I will never care about people again!"

And I willed my heart to turn to stone.

Then one day at my lowest point, I stood in our little library room and thought about my future. I paused and peering ahead, all I saw was grey. Depressing, rolling grey fog--that's all that lay ahead in the path. A lie was told me that day and believing it, I went under.

But God brought me out. Not by way of a Poof! Miracle, but instead, by a Bit By Bit Over The Years Miracle. But that's another blog post (or ten). And now it would be hard for you to find a more contented, peaceful person. He cleared up my confusion about ministry and purpose and He's shown me what happens when I really do love Him best. How Life feels as it should that way. It feels meant-to-be-before-the-Ages good.

And now maybe you can understand why some of my posts sound the way they do--celebratory and almost careening over the Happy Ledge.

If you are in your own Nevada Years... If you have seen that depressing, rolling grey future cloud, remember--it usually appears right before the sun is about to come out and change absolutely everything.

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