The result of a dangerous prayer.

There is a sermon series out by Craig Groeschel called," Dangerous Prayers."

I have been listening to it and God has given me a desire to share some things on this subject.

I have prayed these dangerous prayers since I was about 12 years old. I have a journal full of my young handwriting asking God to Create in me a pure heart and to renew a right spirit within me. I have poured out my heart to God and year after year asked Him to break my heart and to help me see sin and his people the way that He does. I have asked him to keep me soft in a hard world and to help me be brave enough to be different from everyone else in this world. 

I was a foolish and young child. 

I did not know what I was praying....because God heard my prayers and He has answered them...and it has been the most uncomfortable and difficult thing that I have ever walked through.

When we pray these prayers, are we willing to walk them out?

When I prayed for God to break my heart....was I willing to follow Him in complete surrender after He did?

Craig said something powerful in one of those sermons," What if God's greatest blessings come from God's greatest breakings."....and my heart knows just what he meant.

When I was a child, I prayed this prayer because I loved my King and I longed to be as close to His heart as I could get and His Word told me that He was close to the broken hearted....so out of that innocence....I prayed for God to break my heart. To take me out of my comfort zone and not allow me to live with blinders on to the pain of this world. But I didn't have a clue as to what that was going to cost me.

God began this breaking in me even as a child....my parents were foster parents and I saw child after child come and go from our home and my heart would attach to them as siblings, just to see them leave time after time. BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw some of my family struggle with divorce and addictions and it broke my young heart....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw mental illness in some of my best friends and dearest family members and would cry all night sometimes, asking God to heal them....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I went on mission trips with my youth group and saw families struggling to have food, clothes, and basic necessities of life and still to this day pray for some of these families that touched my heart so deeply....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

I saw people walk away from their faith....some of my friends and some people from church who I loved dearly... and I cried and cried....BUT GOD WAS PREPARING ME.

so my heart broke....

and I thanked God for it...

because even though it hurt so bad, He also gave me deep compassion for each of these situations and He drew me closer to His heart and He deepened my faith little bit by little bit.

Then I met my husband and I just knew that together He and I would be walking life together and God would use us to make a difference....never thinking for a minute that God would break my heart through my marriage. But He did.

My husband struggled with his own brokenness and that brokenness ultimately lead to the brokenness of our family. 

We fostered for years and my heart broke with the stories that came through the hearts of the children and again as often times they went right back into the abusive situation. 

When mental illness began to wreck our world and my daughters world...I WRESTLED AND ARGUED WITH GOD RELENTLESSLY! I begged Him for healing and prayed dangerous and bold prayers for her healing....but it didn't come the way I desired for it to come....instead...my heart broke again.

And then our whole family became focused on rehabs and addiction education as my husband struggled with these things...and I BELIEVED THAT GOD WAS GOING TO HEAL MY HUSBAND AND MY MARRIAGE. I believed it with every core of my body. I was still deeply in love with my husband and even though I was struggling to understand the why of what he was doing, I never doubted the power of God's healing in his life....then he left. 

I call it the Shattering.

It was WAY deeper than a broken heart. It was a shattering of my spirit and my faith....and to be honest I didn't know if I would make it....but as I lay there on that floor day after day, crying until I couldn't breathe....and WRESTLING WITH WHY GOD DIDN'T ANSWER MY PRAYER....AND WHAT I DID WRONG TO MAKE MY HUSBAND LEAVE....AND WHY I WAS SUCH A LOSER THAT I WASN'T WORTH FIGHTING FOR OR LOVING ANYMORE....I wrestled with why my prayers didn't matter to God....and it left me shattered.

So what do you do when you are shattered....all I could do was cry out to God and read His Word. I knew deep in me, that if I didn't cling to Him with everything that I had left....I would not make it through this. The grief was to deep and the sadness so thick that I would pray and ask God to take me home each night or give me the strength for each day....because I just couldn't do it. 

And slowly....so so slowly....God began to show me that HE HAD BEEN PREPARING ME FOR THIS ALL ALONG. 

I didn't like that. I struggled with that. I wasn't ok with it....but I have learned through all those years ago, that my God was faithful!  That my God was real. That my God would never lie to me....and so if His Word said it, then it was true. The Word of God had become a rock in my life by this point. 

But you know what else came with the shattering?

Compassion. Empathy. Boundaries. Genuine love.

Praying dangerous prayers is costly.

It will require more out of you than you can give....but that is where the power of the Holy Spirit comes in. His strength fills your heart with joy and love. 

I have become closely acquainted with grief, sadness, and deep sorrow. 

But I have also become closely acquainted with joy, new beginnings, and a song that God sings over my daughters and I. It is a beautiful song and it brings us joy even in the midst of such pain. His joy is a soothing balm to my heart and I am finding more and more joy in the simple beauty of God's faithfulness to us. It blows me away that He is so gracious and loves us so much!

So my friends....BE BRAVE! PRAY THOSE DANGEROUS PRAYERS!....But know that God hears those prayers because He loves listening to us. Those prayers come with a cost....weigh it out. Talk to God about it...and then I encourage you to bow your head, humble your heart, bend your knee....and pray BIG AND BOLD DANGEROUS PRAYERS.

I have a choice every day to live my life comfortable and "safe".....or to throw myself into the arms of Jesus and trust His Word. It is crazy. It doesn't make sense. But it is how I choose to live. You have that choice too....and I cannot challenge you enough to pray dangerous prayers.

Right now our world needs beautiful hearts ready to stand unafraid in the presence of evil and pray big and bold prayers because WE KNOW WHO WE SERVE!
GREAT IS THE LORD AND WORTHY TO BE PRAISED!...even in the broken. Even in the hard. Even in the unfair. And I pray for my own life....that I will NEVER shy away from dangerous prayers!

5 Practical steps for single moms :)

           
Being a single mom was never on my radar.
I had some friends that were single moms....but not once actually understood what they were going through....until I became one of them.
Life is funny like that....so many times we may "sympathize" with something but unless we walk it ourselves, we cannot "empathize" with their story.
I have been a single mom for a few years now....and at first, I was certain I wouldn't make it. I felt SO stressed every single second of every single day! Absolute truth. I thought I would die. It may sound dramatic....but I am being completely honest. Some night I wasn't sure I wanted to make it to the next day. I was dealing with incredibly deep grief and didn't even know how to express my pain. I had felt betrayed, abandoned, and so embarrassed and ashamed. I had fought so hard for my marriage and truly believed that God was going to redeem it....and He didn't.
I think I felt more betrayed by God than anyone.
And I found myself a single mom.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know how to handle the stress that I was now under.
I felt like I had lost everything.
My marriage was destroyed.
My relationship with my in-laws who I thought loved me as family was crumbling.
I was a homeschooling mom who needed to put her children in public school now which to me felt like I was losing even more.
I was no longer a stay at home mom and wife....I was needing to figure out how to navigate the work force and become a career woman now....something that terrified me in every way.
I needed to learn how to budget on a minuscule budget and I needed to learn how to do things alone. I felt the weight of the world on me.
What did I fear?
I feared making the wrong choice for my family.
I feared not being "enough" in any area...financially, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
I feared being alone at night.
I feared raising my girls without a dad...I had read all the statistics and knew that it would make them have a greater risk for being abused among other things.
I feared something happening to me and no one to take care of my girls the way I would.
I feared....alot.
During this whole time I believed that God was with me. I believed that He was going to help me....but I still feared alot.

And now here we are a few years down the road....and a corona virus on our hands. Which could mean more fear for some of us single moms.....so I want to give a word of encouragement to those of you who are walking this road as a single parent right now.

Here are 5 practical things that helped me push through my fear and into my faith.

1. Stay in the Word of God. Even when you are mad at God. Even when you don't know where to start or what to read. Even when you aren't sure if you believe it....keep reading it.

2. Stay connected. You will want to isolate. You will want to stop going to church. Stay connected. Find a church that you feel safe in and go even when you cry all the time. Keep going.

3. Get in counseling. You need to be able to talk about what happened to you. You need to have someone help you walk through the grief you will experience. The first year is especially cruel because you experience all the "first" events alone....birthdays, holidays, anniversary....and they can cripple you. Talking about it helps but it needs to be in a safe environment.

4. Get some fresh air and drink water. I'm not even kidding....it may sound weird but I promise that fresh air and water are going to help you. Take a walk each day if you can...even if only for 10 minutes. Set small goals of being healthy such as taking a small walk every day, drinking water every day, eating fruit instead of sugar. These may already be a part of your every day life or they may not be, but if you will make them a priority, it will help your soul breathe and take away a tiny bit of stress each day.

5. DO NOT GET INTO ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP FOR AT LEAST A YEAR. This may not be popular, but my friends let me tell you that I think it is vital. You need to heal and temptation will come because you are lonely and it may seem like a really good idea to quickly get into another relationship....I promise it can wait. I promise if that is the person that God has for you...they will happily wait at least a year for you to heal. When you walk through trauma, you are vulnerable to many dangers and could easily slip into a relationship that "looks good" but isn't going to be good and you don't need more trauma....you will feel so lonely at times but God wants to meet you in that loneliness. When you are so lonely, put on that worship music, grab your Bible and journal and cry out to God. Don't be afraid to be alone. I can attest that God WILL MEET YOUR LONELY HEART. He will be so gentle with it and pour His healing Word into that broken heart and you will begin to heal...but to do that we have to let Him have our hurt instead of us try to cover it up quickly with another relationship. I have seen far to many women jump quickly into another relationship and they haven't allowed their hearts to heal so they bring alot of brokenness with them into that relationship or they accept behavior that they shouldn't because they are just afraid of being alone. It takes courage to be alone and know that God will take care of you....but you can do it! I promise you can.

I can tell you that I have learned SO MUCH in these last few years about myself, my faith, and my God. I have seen the darkest parts of myself and I have seen many weaknesses in my life....but I have also grown in ways that would never have happened unless I had been stripped bare.

The last thing I want to share with you is this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are a part of a single mom community who are here to hep you...step by step navigate through this new world. We are cheering for you and consider it a joy to be a part of your tribe. Single mom's are some of the toughest women I know....and definitely some of the bravest. You may not feel that way right now....but you are.

Wrestling out loud

Believing that God is good...FOR OUR GOOD....can be really hard for me at times. 

Often time I want to see God's Word come to pass BEFORE I believe and rejoice. If only I would believe what He speaks to me and IMMEDIATELY rejoice and obey!

I find myself in such a different spot than I ever imagined I would be in. I always thought I would grow old with my husband and at this point in our lives....nearly 20 years of marriage...we would be sitting on the couch in the evenings together talking about our day....and truly just enjoying each other.
But instead....I find myself sitting on the couch alone.
And still at times it takes my breath away....and I wonder how I got to this spot.

I guess we all have those moments, don't we? When we just sit and think about life...and the choices that led us to where we are.
I have learned to embrace these moments....to truly sit in them and let my heart and mind search. I don't try and stop my feelings but instead just let myself feel them...and in the feeling, I take each emotion and lay it down at the feet of Jesus.
Sometimes it is the emotion of frustration....WHY IS THIS HAPPENING kind of emotion.
Sometimes it is raw pain...I did not want this road and it hurts my heart to walk it.
Other times it is deep grief....I have LOST. That is truth and in that truth there is grief.
And sometimes it is anger...Why is this allowed? Why didn't God change this? Change him? Change me? Why didn't it work out the way I thought it should?

All of these emotions can lead to depression, bitterness, and rooted anger if I don't identify them and face them. Facing our emotions can be so scary! But it can also be such a beautiful exchange between God and me. I lay each emotion at His feet...and in exchange He takes my emotion and gives me peace instead. He takes my anger and exchanges it for joy. He takes my frustration and exchanges it for long suffering and patience. He reaches into the very depth of my heart and takes my deep grief and exchanges it for hope. Each broken emotion that I bring to Him, He takes it so gently and slowly begins the process of untangling it from my heart. He takes the hurt and if I am brave enough to name it....to face it...He traces that emotion back to the root....and He removes the very root of that pain. The most beautiful part of all of it is that He never just takes from me, leaving empty spaces void of anything. He FILLS them with HIS PRESENCE.

I think I will always be learning of His ways, but this is one of my favorite things He has shown me. Because it is such a beautiful exchange between a Father and his daughter. And it is raw and personal. It is me being brave enough to admit that at times I DON"T FEEL good about the story He has written in my life. It is about being honest enough to look into His eyes, knowing He bears the scars of the Cross, and still tell Him this part of the story hurts. It is about trusting Him enough with all of my heart.

Trusting that God has not only allowed this part of the story but also that it is FOR MY GOOD....I wrestle with that. I wrestle that my younger daughters being raised without a dad is for their good. I wrestle that my tears cried and my heart sobs are good for me....I wrestle with all of that. And let's be honest....I wrestle with the unanswered prayers for my husband. I wrestle with why God has not stepped in and spoken truth to my husband instead of letting him slowly destroy himself. I watch in despair and sadness as I see from afar the choices that he continues to make and I see how those choices affect him, my daughters, and myself. Yes, I wrestle with much. Even now....three years into it.

But I also believe.
And so I just choose to be brave this day.
I choose to face the emotion and to know that my God is big enough to handle all of my emotional self!
I choose to believe in the beauty that is still there....and I choose to be grateful. Out loud.
I choose to praise and sing even when my heart is so heavy....I raise my halleluiah in the middle of my "even if" moments.

And sometimes, I just let myself get quiet and I let myself wrestle with all the "I don't understands" that I have inside of me....and I write. I write out my heart and what God is showing me and teaching me in hopes that someone else will read it and realize they are not the only ones wrestling...and that it is ok to wrestle. To question. To wonder....

So maybe this is part of the sanctification process. Maybe this is the part where we are able to peel back the exterior of a world that is hurting and broken and yet acts like they have it all together....and maybe we can just be honest with them. Show them that when we commit our lives to Jesus, it doesn't always go the beautiful way of our dreams. Maybe we can show them how to hurt, how to be angry, how to walk through betrayal and pain....how to be blind sided by grief....and STILL BELIEVE. Maybe that is part of the story as well....because after all....that is what Jesus did for us didn't He? He showed us how to walk out each of our different emotions, and simply cry out to God through them. He showed us how to surrender them....and have an exchange with the Father in them.

This is my prayer. That through all of this....Jesus will be seen in my every moment.
Because then all of it makes a little more sense.
Maybe there is something holy in the wrestling that I do....
Maybe all of this is allowed so that JESUS can be seen in all of it. And maybe....someone out there is watching us, and because we aren't afraid to be honest about our story, they commit their lives to Jesus.
Maybe that is part of this whole story.....
Maybe redemption does come....but for someone that I don't even know about yet.
Maybe redemption will be the very best part of this story after all.

Toady is Sunday my friends!

Today is Sunday my friends.
To be honest, Sundays have been a struggle for me for so so SO long. Being a single mom, I have all the reasons why I am tired or just not feeling it today....but each week we get up and we go.
Sometimes it was nothing but obedience to God that got me out of the house on Sunday. Because it's hard.
The families.
The husbands and wives.
The parents helping each other out and sitting next to each other in church.
It all felt so catered to the "couples" or the "college and single" groups...and I felt so lost in all of it. It was a constant reminder of what once was...and what I thought would be...
You see....my heart has always found beauty in the church.
Singing with hands raised or knees bowed, hands held together as the preacher prays, the beautiful sound of the pages of the Bible rustling as each person searches for the truth being shared...and I always KNEW I was called to be involved in ministry, but when my husband left, I felt he took that part of me away.
But I want to be obedient to God and I want to teach my daughters the value and importance of being part of a church family...even when it is hard. I want to teach them to go even if they don't "feel it".
Some Sundays are easier and full of joy.
Others I struggle through each part of it.
Because grief is a funny thing that comes in weird ways at times.

Here's the thing though...I know that the enemy loves to destroy and rob...he takes away things. And I refused to give him this part of myself. He had already taken so much away from the girls and I that I clung to and fought hard for this one thing...to stay connected to the Church. It wasn't easy....still isn't to be honest. The introvert  in me is comfortable with being alone and so reaching out is harder for me. As I wrestled with these feelings and was just honest with God about how I felt....I would whisper to Him that I will be obedient and go....but it was a struggle at first especially!
I can say now...three years into it...that the enemy does not get to take my purpose away. No matter how much he "took" from me....the loss of being a stay at home mom, the loss of homeschooling, the loss of being a wife to someone I loved dearly,...you get the picture :) He could not take away my purpose unless I handed it to him.
I still have a purpose. God still has dreams for me and plans for me. He still has dreams and plans for you. Nothing has changed that!! This part of the story was already written into our chapters, we just hadn't gotten there yet.
Maybe you are facing or have faced loss....epic loss that took your breath away and made you feel like you were free falling down a pit of despair that never seemed to end...I know what you have felt. I know the pain that has pierced your soul...and I know it can be hard to refocus with clarity and hope. So I hope I encourage you to never stop pursuing Jesus. Never stop being obedient to the One who gave His life up for you...His beloved and adored one...because He LONGS to have a relationship with you that is deep and intimate.
I can say that sometimes just getting up and doing....each week...day after day....opening your Bible and reading His Truth. Getting dressed and going into the church, even though you sit in the back and tremble because of the awkwardness of it all....you KEEP going. You KEEP reading. You KEEP on....there is freedom and hope that comes with that faithfulness. God has such a beautiful way of weaving the physical and spiritual together and something happens when you just stay faithful in the smallest of things...like going to church.

Today is Sunday my friends!
A beautiful day that dawns a new week.
A beautiful moment to sit beside sisters and brothers who each have their own struggle...and we get to lift our hands up together and sing loud whether we hit the right notes or not! We get to bend our knee and cry our tears and we get to look around at the other people right there alongside of us...and KNOW that it was just as hard for some of them to walk through those doors as it was for you. We get to see brave and broken all in the same room together. We get to close our eyes and hear the whisper of the angels as they worship alongside those brave and broken souls.
Today is Sunday my friends!
A day like no other day.
A day that is meant to be sacred.
A day that is a gift to share.
A day where hearts are changed and minds are drawn to the Creator.
So let's rejoice in this day!
Let's stay faithful and true...never wavering in our love for Jesus...no matter what may come.

Wounds of healing

Healing.
I have heard this word over and over and usually accompanied by the words," it just takes time."
I have come to dislike those words.
I have also come to a place where I realize that even healing has its own wounds. Healing is not a magical spot that once you "arrive" all the pain goes away and you are "fixed" from the hurt of whatever you are healing from.
Healing is a process of surrender. It is coming to a place where each day you surrender to the knowledge that life is not going as planned. You surrender to the process of surrender. That sounds way more complicated than it actually is.
Life is difficult at times to say the least and it can be going along in a beautiful way just for in mere seconds a shift in the whole universe causes your world to fall apart. It can happen in so many different ways.
A phone call.
A picture.
A video.
A moment.
And the shattering happens....just like that.
It will take your breath away and you will wonder if you will make it.

You will.
It will take a long time for you to really believe that.
Don't rush it.
Give yourself time to cry.
Give yourself time to grieve.
Give yourself time to be completely and utterly disappointed that life did not go as planned.
Give yourself time to face the jagged remains of what was once your heart...your dreams...even at times your soul.
Healing has its own wounds.
The wounds are their own healing.....for without them, you would not grow. You would not be able to look at this world differently.
Those of us who walk wounded....which is all of us at some point in our lives, we have a choice to make.
Stay wounded.
Or let the wounds heal...but let beauty grow from their scars.
It really is that simple....and it really is that hard.
We need to allow people to verbalize their pain. We need to allow people to say that things didn't go as planned....because even in the verbalizing of it, healing can come. We need to meet people right where they are in the middle of the really ugly moment and we don't need to tell them what to say, feel, or think....but instead we just stay beside them. We make sure they know they are not alone. We let them cry, rage, curse if they need too.....we let them heal....slowly if necessary.
God is not afraid of my pain. He doesn't look away or tell me I need to move on.
He DOES allow me to feel....and feel hard sometimes.
Sometimes the very breath you breathe is hard to feel....and the shards of our heart jab our spirit with each breath.
I get it.
I have felt it.
I have also been at the crossroads of healing.
Do I turn my heart off so I don't have to hurt anymore?
Or do I allow myself to feel this pain....trusting that God is growing beauty from it?
I am the only one that can answer that.
You are the only one that can answer the cry of your own heart?
So will you stop it from beating so that you save yourself from pain?
Or do you let it beat....throbbing at times....trusting that with each painful throb....something beautiful is coming?
For me....I choose beauty.
And I know it comes with a cost.
It will require my heart....my tears...and it will hurt.
But what will come from that pain, is something so beautiful that every second of the pain will be worth it.
It may not feel that way right now.
I get it.
But my dear friend....even when your heart is breaking....BELIEVE IN THE BEAUTIFUL.
God is at work in these scar filled hearts of ours.
God is orchestrating a melody and symphony that will capture the darkness you feel and turn it into a bright and powerful light for the one behind you just beginning their journey.
God is growing these tired and worn out hearts into something captivating.
We just have to BELIEVE IN THE BEAUTIFUL....really and deeply believe.

New adventures yet again....

There have been several things that have happened lately that have kind of taken my breath away....things that I have prayed against much of my adult life....and I have had to learn how to adjust to these seemingly unanswered prayers.
Now before we go on, let me just say that these things I write about are my convictions. They are not meant to be yours nor do I judge or condemn if they are not yours....because as you will see as you read through this, even my own convictions have been challenged so much in these last few years.

So....Let's see......where do I start.....


Most of you reading this know me. You know that I have very strong convictions and that I can be fiercely determined when it comes to what I believe in. I have always believed in homeschooling my children, staying at home and taking care of my home and my husband, being involved in my community and truly desiring to make a change in the world around me.

I loved all of these things and took great pride in them. Being at home with my girls and volunteering at different places within our community gave my heart a safe place and I felt like I was living out my calling. I loved taking care of my home and having supper on the table when my husband got home from work....because that was what I was called to do. And I delighted in that calling.

Then one day...the world kind of fell apart. Everything changed.
I lost the ability to be a stay at home mom. I desperately clung to homeschooling my girls and tried for two years to keep the "normal" going.....but it wasn't normal anymore. Things had changed and I refused to change with them. I was so scared guys....because I felt like I was losing my calling.

Have you ever felt like you have completely lost your calling? Like everything you thought you knew was the right way to go, turned out to be a mirage of sorts....and you were left standing in a room of memories that you didn't even know how to sort out. What was truth? What was lies? What was real? What was always just a fantasy?

It is one of the scariest feelings in the world....at least for me it was.

Then you come to the realization that things ARE GOING to change. One way or the other....whether you like it or not.

I had to make some decisions and I wrestled and wrestled with those decisions! I DID NOT want to send my girls to public school. I'm not against public school....I just felt strongly about my calling to home school.

And I did not understand how God could call me to home school just to change His mind later in the game.

Sigh....God has a way of doing things that I just can't figure out. His ways are definitely NOT my ways. And to be honest....sometimes trusting Him is hard. I sometimes look around and think," Are you seeing this God?" " Are you sure You have a plan that is good that involves this pain and hurt?"
It can be hard to process at times....how the God of the universe who has every ability to stop pain, instead, uses pain for our good. It hard to understand that at times....but I'm learning.

Anyway, so this year we have made another huge change for our family. I am sending my girls to public school. It has not been an easy decision and I have struggled with it for quite awhile, however, in the surrender of yet another dream of "my plan"....peace comes.

I walked through the High school with my girls and prayed as we walked through....I saw beautiful students walking around just as nervous and excited as my girls. I saw students who would make good choices and students who would make bad choices. I saw teachers who genuinely were excited to see their students back and talked to counselors and principals who truly loved and cared for these kids. I heard of teachers and principals who also viewed this school as their mission field. And I think God began to change my eyesight....He started opening my eyes to the good that could be.

Sometimes we all have these convictions. These deliberate and thought out choices that we make a stand on and feel very strongly about. Those are good to have and we all need to stand strong in our convictions and learn how to be firm in them....even as we learn how to be flexible in the Holy Spirit.
You see, I also am incredibly firm in my belief that God is sovereign in all things. That means that when pain or hurt comes along....God is still sovereign in it. That means that when a life change happens that completely takes our breath away, God is still sovereign. His sovereignty is NEVER based on my circumstances. Nor are they based on how I feel about a situation :)

So...there I was, walking through the halls of a huge high school and praying for my girls. At one point I felt the tears pop in my eyes and had to swallow them down quickly. Those were the tears of someone still struggling with not getting her way. At the same time, I hear God whisper to my heart," Do you trust me Brandi?" I wanted to quickly retort with," yeah but...."....however I just got real quite inside. I came home and went into my war room and cried for a bit...but hey...I cry over everything and that's ok ;) I asked God to give me wisdom....and strength...and peace. I asked Him to bring up a verse that would speak to my heart and let me know that everything is ok.

In true God fashion, He began to bring up verse after verse of how He will never leave my girls.
How He loves them more than I do.
How He formed them from day one with a specific plan.
A plan that He knew would include this moment in their life.
How He has sealed them for His glory.
How He has surrounded them with specific warrior angels.
How He created the starts and sun and moon....and my girls are dear to His heart even more than those things.
How He had given me precious moments to train them and teach them and now it was time for them to live out what I had taught them.
He showed me Moses...who's mom only had a few years with him before letting him go into Pharaoh's house and how God had always known the plan for Moses....even when his momma did not.
He showed me Samuel and how He was only with his mom for a very small timeframe before he too had to go and live out his calling.
He showed me young Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.and how they were taken from their homes and put it into a place that none of them wanted....and yet....God already had a plan for them there.

Ultimately, it really did boil down to that one simply terrifying question," Do you trust me Brandi?"

Honestly, I feel like this question has been asked of me so many times by Him over the last few years....and I always answer yes. Because I DO trust Him....even though I DON'T always understand Him. And this time is going to be no different.

The girls are I have a new adventure ahead...for some of you reading this, you may be shaking your heads and thinking it's not that big of a deal...and for others reading this, you may be thinking that I have lost my marbles to allow this....LOL.
Ultimately....I'm just doing the best I can. I'm just moving forward each day and praying that somehow in the long run, it's all going to turn out ok. I'm just praying that God will continue to be Sovereign...and He will.
I'm praying that I will continue to learn to trust His heart more and more....
I'm praying that I will not be in my comfort zone.(although I LOVE my comfort zone and miss it so badly at times), it is when I am completely unsure of myself that I really have to trust the God I serve. I have to trust that His Word is true.
I have to trust that He is good. Always.

I just want to walk through this life honest with people. Honest about the struggle. Honest about how shaky my faith can be at times. Honest that life isn't always easy....and honest that sometimes I doubt and cry and complain and wonder what in the heck is going on....
But I also want to be honest about the God I serve.
Because He has never once broken His Word to me.
He has never once proved Himself unfaithful to my girls and I.
He has never once been shaken by something that has shaken my world.
He has never once been surprised by my pain, or my insecurities.
He has always loved me exactly as I am and where I am.
He has always continued to push me into deeper waters where I cannot touch and where I have no other choice but to trust that He will be there...and He always is.
I serve Jehovah. And Jehovah is worthy of being praised even when I am unsure of where all this is going to go....

This year could be amazing for my girls....it could be terrible....I honestly don't know which way it is going to go. I DO KNOW that God will be with them. I DO KNOW that if God is for them, I don't need to worry about who is against them. I DO KNOW that they will have opportunity to make choices this year....like we all do. And those choices are already known by God.
I also do know that I will be praying ALOT through this year.....and that at times I might get a little emotional. I'm still processing everything that I have had to give up....and at times it is still very hard on my heart. I'm still trying to figure out the," now what" part of life....now what is my calling? What is my purpose? What is the plan? What am I going to be when I grow up kind of thing....because everything I ever thought would be...isn't.
I'm still trying to figure out how all of this is going to be for my good and the good of my girls....and I'm still trying to understand so many broken things. No matter what though....I stand firm on what God's Word says. I believe and will not let the enemy steal my faith or my joy.

So maybe you are going through some big changes as well....things that you are wondering about....and maybe together, we can just walk through life being honest and raw with each other and learning to encourage and uplift each other...even when we may not understand any of it ourselves. Maybe we can teach our children that we don't always have it together or all figured out either...but we do serve a God who does.

The life I use to live....and what it's really like now.

The truth is...divorce is hard.

Not just on the kids.

You see....I never wanted this. I prayed with everything in me AGAINST the divorce....and yet....I am the one that filed FOR the divorce. It is all so complicated and frustrating. 

I still think divorce is terrible. I think it should be the VERY LAST THING someone does and ONLY when there is a refusal from the other person to give up adultery and abuse.

But no matter the why....it still hurts.

The life I use to live was double sided....one side was beautiful. A handsome husband, a house out in the country, a family of six daughters...sewing, dancing in the kitchen, piano playing, gardening and working on our little country home....involved in our church and our community through dance and foster care and adoption and special needs events....I loved that part of the life I use to live....

But then the other side...angry outburst, gambling the paychecks away, holes punched in walls, fear, lying, tears, wondering where your loved one was or who they were with, covering for them became the normal....I still grieve over that part of the life I use to live.

Adultery had become a "normal" in my world....adultery with porn, massage parlors, and other women....but when I made a covenant to love my husband, I meant it. I made a vow before God to walk through fire for my husband and I meant every word. And it was put to the test....over and over. I use to cry many times at night because I didn't know where my husband was or who he was with this time and I never could stay a step ahead of him! I would try....how I would try!...but it didn't matter. When someone has determined to do wrong, nothing you can do will matter. They just become sneaker and more creative in how to deceive you. 

But I NEVER wanted a divorce. I wanted my marriage. I wanted my husband. I wanted to honor and respect him even through terrible heartache. I wanted my daughters to see their parents grow old together and watch them push through hard times.

So I prayed. I begged God to change my husbands heart!! I had friends praying for God to move on his heart....and nothing happened except he got farther away. I cried until there were no tears left and I broke into so many pieces that there was nothing left of me. I can still remember sitting in our marriage counselors office,( who had become a good friend by this point) and he asked my husband,"will you stop having this relationship with this other woman so that your marriage can try and survive?"....and my husband....the one that I had given myself to completely and the one that I had determined to stand by NO MATTER WHAT....was walking away from me. And the life I use to live was about to be destroyed forever....

I left that counselors office crying so hard I could not see to drive. I parked my car and lost it. I screamed. I cried. I begged God to move on my husbands heart. I could not think....I could only pulse pain....

I drove home and talked with my parents and they reminded me that God hasn't given up and neither should I! I needed to set up some firm boundaries but keep praying for redemption. I called our recovery Pastor and recovery Counselor and I got many, many people praying on behalf of my husband. Every Sunday, my daughters and I would throw ourselves on the altar at our church and weep....begging God to DO SOMETHING! Every evening my girls and I would grab each others hands and ask God to move on their daddy's heart....

He left.

He moved states away to be with his girlfriend. A married woman who was getting a divorce in part to my husbands role in her life. It devastated me. It ruined me. It changed me. And it changed my daughters.

We had always taught the girls that marriage is a beautiful covenant between God and a man and woman. We had always taught our girls that God redeems and restores. Up to the day my husband drove off, we prayed for a miracle....but the day he left...our world crashed. My daughters faith was shaken and turned upside down and we all began to fall....desperately crying out to God to catch us! I thought I would die....in fact....I would lay in my bed at night and cry and cry and ask God to take me home because I just couldn't do it. The pain was to much and I didn't want to survive it! I TRULY believed that God wanted my marriage to make it! I TRULY believed that God was going to wake my husband up and bring him home to his family....but that did not happen. And my faith was shaking....because God IS GOOD! He is ALWAYS FOR HIS CHILDRENS GOOD.....and IF THIS was His good....did I want that? 

I couldn't bring myself to file for divorce so I filed for legal separation...secretly hoping that one day I would open the door and there would be my husband....coming home to the family who desperately loved him and STILL believed in him....but that didn't happen...and I had to make choices that I wanted nothing to do with. 

I prayed and wrestled with what to do. I was still grieving in IMMENSE ways and was also having to learn how to become a working single mother. I felt so very lost. Even now when I write about it, I can feel the pain of those moments....they were so dark and lonely and I was so unsure of everything. I felt rejection in ways that I cannot explain. I felt ugly. I felt unwanted. I felt unloved. I felt like all the 16 years of praying and supporting and loving my husband through all his addictions and junk he put our family through....meant nothing. Sometimes I still feel that way. But I also pressed into the Word of God like never before! I woke up and instantly grabbed my Bible or I could not make myself get out of bed. I read it throughout the entire day because I couldn't make it through without it...sometimes at my job, I would lock myself in the bathroom and literally would fall to my knees and cry because I longed to be a stay at home mom and I missed the life I use to live and my heart ached. I went to bed reading the Word and I kept the Word on audio throughout the entire  night.....I knew if I didn't, I wouldn't make it through this. 

As I sought out wisdom and prayed....and the heart of my husband was not coming home....I knew I was going to have to file for a divorce. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. When your spouse commits adultery, that spouse doesn't know what love is...but the faithful spouse....they don't just "fall out of love". I FOUGHT for my marriage because I WANTED my marriage. I didn't just stop loving the man that I had committed to love for the rest of my life....what I was having to do though is realize that the man I loved had never loved me like that....because when you truly love someone in a covenant way....you put their needs ahead of your own. You selflessly lay down your desires for supporting them....and when you walk through rehab, recovery groups, sober living homes....and all the pain that caused them to go INTO those things to begin with.....just to have them walk away from you when they decide they want something "different".....your love doesn't just stop. All the shattered pieces inside of you just swirl around cutting everything inside of you....and you bleed raw. 

My love for my husband didn't just "go away". I have had to surrender it to Jesus every day. I have had to lay down my love for my husband....the covenant love that I made a vow to God and him....I just had to lay it down at the feet of my King and ask Him to take it away. 

I can't say that my love for my husband is completely gone although I don't ever want to go back to the pain and fear that I lived in. I grieve for my husband and the way he has " normalized" his behavior.  I grieve the life I once lived many times over....but I am learning to love the life I AM LIVING.

Adultery destroys families. Lies destroy families. There is never a time that adultery is ok. There is never a time that abuse is ok. For way to long, I lived in a secret place of pain afraid of speaking the truth because I was so worried about what people would think of me....so I stayed. And I was wrong to tolerate abuse. I was wrong to stay silent. There are far to many women just like me, that stay silent when they should speak out....and there are far to many people who believe the lies of someone who has along history of lying over the cries of a broken woman. I want that stopped. I NEVER want my girls to be afraid to speak the truth about what is going on in their lives! I NEVER want my girls to tolerate adultery, emotional, physical, or substance abuse, lies and deception.....it is NOT ok. We can't be afraid of the word repentance and we can't be afraid to hold people accountable to live out truth. None of us are perfect. We all struggle....but we need to make sure our children know the difference between struggling with sin and walking hand in hand with sin.  

I am now a single working mom of six beautiful daughters. I have a job that I am learning more about each day and am grateful to serve at. I have a King who provides. Protects. Guards. and Speak life over us. I am still adjusting to life as a single mom. Most days it feels like it will be an adjustment forever....but maybe it will get easier one day. Being a single mom is hard. Sometimes I just wonder how I can do it all....and I am so thankful for the grace my children give me every day as I figure out how to do this.

The Word of God is alive. The very Scriptures I read every day are lived out before me and I see the hand of God in each moment of my life and my daughters lives....and I am breathing again.

Our family is so very different than the one I dreamed of....and the girls and I are still learning what that looks like but God continues to put new dreams in our hearts. 

I wish there was  a book that told me how to walk each day of this out....and I wish there was a "one fits all" kind of manual....but there's not. Each of us process things differently and I am doing my best to process all of this through the Word of God as my foundation.

God's plan for my life has not changed. God's plan for my daughters lives has not changed. He is ALWAYS for our good. He still has beautiful moments ahead for us....moments of joy and love and adventure....and we are looking forward each day to those moments! When we need a good cry...we simply have one. We stay grounded in truth and do not allow ourselves to get pulled into chaos that does not belong to us. We do not enable but we do love. We encourage each other and we give each other grace. We are dreaming again....and they are beautiful dreams.

So the life I use to live is gone....and a new life is here. A life I am still figuring out....but a life I am learning to love.