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.