To be, or not to be....gentle: That is the question.

When Ella was younger she had an immense fear of thunderstorms. And by fear, I mean she was TERRIFIED. It didn’t matter if it was during the day or night, if every light in the house was on, or if she were sitting in my lap. When she witnessed that first streak of lightning or heard the first roll of thunder (no matter how loud) terror would consume her face and her whole body would start trembling. It didn’t matter to her that we explained God made the thunder and it was good for the outside. In an effort to appeal to the animal fanatic in her we tried explaining that the storms gave the wild animals and plants something to drink, would cool them off and the thunder was just telling them to take cover, they were about to get wet. It didn’t amuse her that lightning made the grass greener. It got so bad that she would be worried about a storm coming before there were any signs of one. If there was a cloud in the sky she’d start asking me if it was going to storm. She was so worried about something that hadn’t even happened yet. And like Ella, I don’t know how many times I’ve worried about something that never even came to pass when the Word literally tells me “not to be anxious about anything” and “God did not give us a spirit of fear.” In fact I did it beautifully several weeks ago.

We’d been sitting at the intersection of struggle and uncertainty for awhile, but, since there’s beauty in the process, God revealed His faithfulness when the enemy wanted me to think that He wasn’t. After having a miscarriage in June, we found out two months later in August that we were pregnant again (Not the faithfulness I'm referring to...I'll get there). But, there’s so much emotion in that sentence alone. How thankful, what a blessing, how exciting-absolutely! And I was sure that a pregnancy now would make the rest of the year so much more bearable seeing as how I would’ve been pregnant anyway. But, it was harder than I thought. This baby I carry now doesn’t replace the one we lost. It’s a different baby, an entirely different life and one doesn’t supplant the other. So, there I sat, approaching the same week in which we lost Aubrey and I had no way of knowing if this time would be any different. I was terrified of the outcome. At this point I’d been asking God for months what He was teaching me, what He wanted me to learn, what He was doing in our life through this course of events over the past several months and I got nothing. There was such an outpour of His spirit on us after we lost the baby and then it was like He moved on and got busy doing something else. There was such a dry season after that. But, He had to build a foundation under me. He had to break me so that I would have a teachable spirit and know that it was Him. He had to drive me to a point of letting go of things He never intended me to hold onto. He had to remind me not to worry about the things I had no control over. But, after getting used to the fact that I was clearly insisting on answers He wasn’t ready to give yet, He finally spoke up. “I want you to trust me with MY outcome.” Because if we’re being honest, I didn’t. In theory I did, in my mind I wanted to. But, it took more strength than I had to really say and believe, “I trust what you’re doing and I’m ok with WHATEVER. This baby is yours and not mine and I accept your will without any retaliation on my part.” I know in my mind ALL the time the truth-God is good, God is love, His plan is perfect, He works things for our good, His strength is made perfect in my weakness. But, though I know it my mind, I don't always feel it in my heart. I think our moments of greatest faith come when we have to fight to believe what we know to be true. Our mind knows it, but our hearts don't. That's why He says the "heart is deceitful above all things." Faith is kind of a tricky thing. So many times we want proof and that’s not what faith promises. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Trusting Him with our future, the outcome, what our next steps look like, our fears or worries can be very difficult in our own strength. Exhausting, really. Sometimes we just can’t let go. But, why not let our unknown go to the only One that knows. We can’t lose there. James 5:11 says, “We count those blessed those who have endured.” And we see it through the models of our faith in scripture; Job, Jeremiah, David, Abraham, Moses, the list goes on. When we don’t know where else to go we can always ignite some fresh strength through their lives.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been doing a Precept study on the Sermon on the Mount. I didn’t know when I started it that He was going to use it in a mighty way, but He did. So, during this study I learned that often times the original languages of words in the Bible mean very different things than our modern-day meanings. Ergo, we must understand how a word was intended at that time as opposed to what we perceive it to mean today in order to correctly understand and apply scripture. So, I did a word study on “gentle.” The Greek word for gentle is praus. And it means, “mildness of disposition. A disposition of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good, without dispute or resisting.” It stems from “trust in God’s goodness and control over the situation.” I had no idea, never in a million years would I have defined it that way, but how amazing. Obviously, He put that in front of me at just the right time. Like any good teacher, He told me what He wanted me to be and then showed me how it looks. I always thought I was gentle, but by God’s standards I wasn’t, especially not with this. And when He said He wanted me to trust Him with the outcome, this is what He meant. He wanted me to have a spirit of gentleness. And I can assure you, He wouldn't move me forward an iota until that happened. It's funny sometimes, the thing The Lord wants us to work on is something that's not even in the card catalog of our mind. I was focused on one thing and God was like, "I wanna work on this thing over here." You can bet that it stopped me in my tracks that after all these months He set up camp at "gentle." We just never know where our weaknesses are until He decides to reveal it.

Sometime before the miscarriage in June I had a "feeling" something wasn't right. In that moment of uncertainty and fear I felt the presence of God grab on with this thought, "You can pray for the health of this baby or you can pray for my will." With tears streaming down my face I hit my knees on the kitchen floor and prayed for His will in our lives and with the pregnancy. It was the beginning of my lesson in gentleness and I didn't even know it. Since finding out about this baby He's forced me to my knees on so many occasions. I have to "let go" daily. It was never about the baby we lost or the one He’s given now. It’s always been about trusting Him no matter the circumstances because He knows so much better. It was about learning to get past my selfishness and need for “control,“ the need for answers and things being the way I “thought” they should. It was about my prayer life. The Spirit intercedes for us and we are able to pray the things that bring us to Him and keep us in His will. Even when we feel like we don't have the strength to really say, "Father, your will be done." It turns out sometimes that's all we can muster up. It's a battle everyday, but in His faithfulness He's brought me to a place that when the enemy lies to me about this pregnancy and the plans the Lord has, I can say, "Flee from me Satan, I count it all joy because everything from his hand is good and you‘ve been a liar and deceiver from the beginning."


I was asking God like much was at stake, because there was. Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” I’m so thankful the Lord taught me about His definition of gentle. If He hadn’t I could’ve gone the rest of my life thinking that I was, when in all reality I wasn’t at all.