Crisis of faith--Part 1

I've been on a spiritual journey now for about the last two years or so. It started when God began to awakening in me this sense that there was more to being a Christ, to following Christ, to having an intimate relationship with Him. I knew I was missing something and my heart longed to draw closer to my Savior.

I was introduced to a book called "Jesus on Leadership." If you've never read it, pick it, get some friends and do a study together. It WILL change your life. Then Matthew West put out a song called, "Motions" and the song turned my life upside-down. I realized I was doing a lot of good things for God, but I wasn't really looking to God to doing any God-sized things in and through my life.

So my hunger for God grew and I kept asking myself the questions of what did it really mean to follow Christ, to be sold out to Him, to die to self daily? What would my faith story looked like if I truly lived out and beleived God for all the things I knew to be true about Him and the kind of life He wanted me to lead?

So God has been challenging me, and growing me, and pruning me. And I have just tried to be as honest and transparent with God as I could be.

And then a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to apply for a position. I've been a stay-at home-mom off and on for the past 11 years...and totally at home for the past 7 years. But now that all of our kids are in school, it made sense to start looking for a full-time job. The decision to live on one income was a sacrifice we had chosen, but it had started to really strain our finances. The job would literally change our lives.

Well, long story short, after 3 interviews over the course of about 4 months, I was really hopeful. Friends and family were praying, offering words of encouragement, and some even outright saying the job was mine. There were Scripture passages that came up in Bible studies and sermons that felt like confirmation that this was where I was supposed to be. I prayed earnestly and felt very positive about the interviews. But then I didn't get the job.

To say I was devastated would be a gross understatement. And to my surprise, I went into a tailspin of a faith crisis. I couldn't understand what had happened....and not just about the job, I struggled to understand why I was responding the way I was.

I was so frustrated and confused with God...that I didn't even know where to begin. I felt isolated and abandoned by my faith. I remember sitting in my car one morning fighting back tears because I couldn't even afford to buy my son a cup of coffee at the gas station. And in that moment, I just looked at my life and thought...this is not really what I signed up...this is not how I thought my life would be in my 40s. After all, my husband has a Ph.D. and a I have a master's degree. We got our education, we loved the Lord, we were working to raise our children to know God.

I was at a lost. I was obviously missing something. Everything that was happening in my circumstances said one thing, but my experience with God said quite another.

Stay tuned to see how God spoke!