Walk on Water

Lets go back 5 years…

I was sitting in my bed making a plan for my life

• Go to LSU for college
• Major in social work
• Meet my husband and get married
• Get my masters
• Become a therapist

So I went to LSU, majored in Child and Family studies, and everything was going well until

BOOM.

There was this intense tugging on my heart to leave my home move across the country and go to a small Catholic school in Ohio. How could Jesus ask something so ridiculous of me? How could everything my plans crumble so quickly? How could I take that leap of faith and trust that the I am actually doing the Lord’s will.

So there I went. Moved across the country, went to the small college, switched my major to nursing. All my plans were wrecked. Can’t I just get my way in something?

I fell into this pit. I didn’t want Jesus in my life. After all he took away from me everything I wanted. He took away my dreams. I lost my ability to trust not only in the Lord but in the people around me. How did I know that the people around me weren’t full of false promises. What was going to keep them from leaving me?

In the lowest of lows. In a place where the word trust had completely lost its meaning I heard the Lord whisper in my heart:

“Never will I leave you or forsake you” 

But I feel abandoned so how is that true. I had to abandon my friends and my plans and my school.

This lack of trust in the Lord and in basically everything around me had me thinking of the story of Peter. His in the boat, right? and Jesus is like come on step out of the boat, do you trust me? He steps out of the boat walks on water, but then he sees the waves. He gets scared and begins to sink and calls out to the Lord and he saves him.

So here I am stuck in this boat right? and the Lord is asking me to trust all these people and I’m just like

“Jesus you are really funny.”

My whole life people have come and gone. I have crippling anxiety about being in this new place. I’m surrounded by the lies that no one wants to be with me. I’m terrified to open up about the pain and hurt that I have encounter on my journey thus far. On top of this crippling anxiety I am sad, like the depressed kind of sad. I sit in external silence while the thoughts in my head are so loud its deafening.

But I stepped out of the boat. and trust me I sunk really quickly I doubted that there was any hope for this situation. I would be alone forever right? Then again

BOOM.

when I least expected it Jesus pulled me out of the waves and gave me friends. Real friends that listened to me and loved me in my weaknesses. Friends that allowed me to regain trust.

Here I am 1000 miles away from home and the happiest I have ever been. The Lord never left me, he was just planning something that was so much better than I ever could have imagined.

So I don’t know if you are stuck in the boat afraid to trust. Afraid that you might sink even deeper. I don’t know if the wounds of the past or struggles of the present have you feeling completely isolated and alone. But you are not alone. In the simplest way you are not alone in that feeling of being alone. That was the first step in a long journey.

Step out of the boat. Trust. Let yourself be loved.