Faith Like A Mustard Seed

This continued into college. As I said, I did have a relationship with God in so far as that I believed in Him.  However, I didn't always understand or truly believe on my own that He could and would help, guide, provide, protect, defend me even if it was done more on his time than mine and more his way than mine. And outside a hospital/medical setting. In early 2000's I was named Ms.Wheelchair Ohio. It was one of the craziest, biggest honors of my life. In one year I attended college part-time, worked part-time and did over 100 appearances promoting my platform of adoption and the Ms. Wheelchair Organization.  Looking back, I see how I let fear, lack of trust and maybe entitlement stop me from having an even better year. I thought that all appearances would go smoothly with no challenges or barriers since, after all, this was a program for woman in wheelchairs so everything's accessible all the time right? Wrong. Instead of seeing obstacles as opportunities to advocate for change and inclusion, I whined, complained and even yelled to have the barriers moved in the first place. See how I'm connecting this to faith? By the end of my reign I'm 100% certain they wanted me out as much as I wanted out.  After a time though, I could see I needed that to push me toward more independence and growing faith. I used what I learned to improve my ability to speak clearly and directly about my hopes, dreams, goals. Prayerfully accomplish them with God's blessing and help.

This wasn't easy to do with very loving yet overprotective family(read that Mother LOL) I began taking little trips myself, things that were big to me, maybe not so much to others. In 2010, I took the biggest risk and moved out on my own. It was scary, for more reason than one, but it was a wake up call that for too long I really didn't know what it meant to rely on God, his guidance, direction and timing for meeting my needs and just being my Father who loved me. I had to learn that just because something didn't Look like it was going the way I hoped for didn't mean it wasn't(hope that made sense). I had to, as I say, trust my gut but really it's listening for the small voice of the Holy Spirit and trusting his direction. Do I do this perfectly, NO. I went against counsel of family and I believe God, and basically left another job before I had a new one to go to.  It took five years before another would come along. In that time, relationships changed or eroded, my activity level stalled and I had to redefine who I was since I believed so much of my identity was wrapped up in the last job I left for to many reasons to explain here. I applied to as many jobs as I could. I got interviews, but either was rejected time and again or I was overqualified.  After a while I gave up.  Depression was diagnosed. Somehow this wasn't a shock, I was just glad to name it and do something about it.

Faith- Certainty without sight

For those who are new to this blog or being a friend, a little about me. I was born with and live with Spina Bifida, a neural tube defect that occurs days after conception causing paralysis plus numerous internal and external complications. Also, I was raised either in my biological family or adopted family in the Christian faith. That meant attending worship twice every Sunday(as much as possible)rarely on Wednesday. During the week we prayed, read the Bible occasionally and followed what we believed were the tenants of our faith(believing in Jesus Christ as the resurrected Lord and Messiah in addition to things like don't drink, smoke, swear, wait until marriage for sex, children did as they were told, there were consequences if we didn't. I still live by these and I'll get back to them). We believed in the Holy Spirit but didn't talk much about it as it was associated with unexplainable things such as miracles(we believed those only happened in the Bible). Somehow, whether it was taught outright or it's what I internalized from what I saw and heard, I came to believe that following all these things without question was all I needed to do to  be saved and assured of going to heaven after death. To go against these things was, in a sense, a point of no return. In other words, once one becomes a Christian, sin is unacceptable and unforgivable. I had come to believe my salvation, though given through Christ as a gift, was within my control since I could follow rules and/or do as I was told without question or argument. I believed I was "right" and most others were wrong when it came to matters of religion. Relationship w/God wasn't something I thought I could have and prayer wasn't really conversing with him. He only wanted to here certain things. Again, this may or may not have been outright taught to me, but I internalized these messages based on what I heard and saw from others.

Most of my life I'd heard and believed "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we can't/don't see." This helped me with things related to my disability. For example, across my life I've had nearly thirty operations/medical procedures. As long as the doctor could tell me and my family what the problem was and how it could be dealt with to get me back to a more normal life, I placed my trust in God and mostly in whichever doctor to do what they said and usually I got back to my normal soon. Also, anytime there was a problem or concern that came up with our schooling and being included or getting needed accommodations, we knew that with our mom's help(which included but not limited to her fighting on our behalf) we would be accommodated/included as best was possible.  In both these examples and many others I came to believe that with "faith" in God and/or whoever helped us through situations, our needs would be met exactly as we decided they should be.  As I got into adulthood and began to speak more for myself and advocate for my needs, I found it more difficult to explain myself in ways that got me the outcomes I believed I needed to be included or accommodated. In other words, if I didn't see things happening the way I felt they should, I didn't have trust that I'd be included or accommodated and that I had lost control.  I almost quit college because of this.  I definitely left one job over it.