On Mother’s Day, I was so honored to preach at my local church, Trinity Communion Church in Rochester, New York, where my family and I have been members for over 7 years. Today I am sharing that sermon. I was nervous, excited, honored and flattered…but mostly terrified! I worked hard, I researched, I prayed, and I did it! I realized I want to share this because I said “yes,” even though I felt so far outside my comfort zone. Hopefully it encourages you to do the same thing.
I introduced myself and shared a special message to mothers out there. While in a literal sense Mother’s are life-giving, they are also life-giving in an emotional and spiritual sense.
I expressed how difficult it is to live in faith during these difficult times. How do we get back there? How do we go from fear to faith? The answer: Remember your strength. I feel so often that in order for me to walk in faith, there are burdens that I am facing. Maybe if something outside of me changes, my burdens will be lighter and THEN I can walk in faith. You know that fullness does not come form anything outside of us. Instead when I say “remember your strength” I mean remember the strength that is already inside of you. We have been given the things we need, but at times we have forgotten it.
[10:35] Psalm 31: David is calling out and facing challenges and a back-and-forth. I shared a meme: “Home isolation has its ups and downs. One minute you are cleaning the baseboards with a Q-Tip and the next minute you are watching squirrels out your window.” It is the case for many of us now. One minute I am feeling happy, then sad, then frustrated. This back and forth is hard. It is exhausting. How do we move through these feelings? How do we walk in faith?
[12:12] I share step 1: We bring our challenges to the life. David cries out “Be merciful to me lord for I am in distress.” If we keep what we are feeling in the dark by avoiding it or denying it, we are not able to walk in truth. If you feel frustrated, angry, upset, I want to encourage you to hand it over to the Lord in prayer. Share it with a partner, friend or bring it to your church. Bring it to the light. What you are feeling or struggling with is worthy to be brought to the light.
[14:30] I shared Brené Brown’s concept of “Comparative Suffering.” It is the idea that we naturally take our pain, our grief and our challenges and we compare them to others pain, grief and challenges. And if the jury comes back that their challenges are harder or more traumatic than ours than we subconsciously feel like our feelings aren’t worth being felt. We drown ourselves in gratitude and push those feelings into darkness, too.
[16:01] I share step 2: Remove the facades from your challenges. So often what is actually upsetting us isn’t actually the problem. I share an example from my own experience. Sometimes your problems are your problems, but sometimes you need to dig deeper. Really examine what might be covering up the challenges that are actually hidden even deeper so you can bring those to the light too.
[19:16] I express the importance of bringing these challenges to the light. If we don’t, it is impossible to walk in faith. Building armor around our heart, we protect our hearts from pain and feel safe. But faith, joy and happiness cannot come in, either. We must prepare our hearts by opening our hearts.
[20:24] I share step 3: Remember His strength. Call His strength to our minds. The more that I have learned about Jesus, the more I have sat with the words of the bible, the more I know his strength. I want to encourage you to spend more time with The Bible. Find the ways that God is working in your life and call those to mind.
[22:23] I close with our final step: Remember YOUR strength. Remembering His strength allows us to remember our own. As we misstep, as we sin, as we encounter challenges, how beautiful is it that Christ has given us the opportunity each day to be made new? The more that we know where our strength comes from, the more we can live in faith and not in fear. The Lord’s strength is in you and it is also in me, and that is how we can walk in faith.
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Episode 33: Building Your BEST Normal
Episode 32: Comparative Successes and Sufferings
Episode 27: How to Navigate Your Mind and Soul in This Unprecedented Time