A few weeks ago I woke up.  There was nothing different about the day as it started.  It was just like any other day, but as I scooted out of bed and my feet hit the texture of the carpet in our room, something was different.  I lifted my eyes up as I’ve been doing with them each and every day.  And that is when it hit me.  The fog… the lingering fog of the past three months had suddenly lifted.  And in that moment I began to see my surroundings anew again.  I could see again.

Have you ever felt that way?  Been in a place of where your only hope for your next breath or next step or next foot out of bed is trust and dependence on Him?  Been in a place where the fog settles and you are not sure what is surrounding you or when it will ever lift?

There are lots of things in life that bring the Fog around us.  For me currently it’s being in a state of transition. I’m not fooling anyone.  Seasons of transition don’t come easy to me.  Not everyone struggles with transition but I certainly do.  I’m a person of predictability and patterns and rhythms.  So when I come to a place where I have to re-define normal, those places always are raw for me.  Redefining Normal can happen for many reasons for many of us.  A sudden death of someone we love, sickness, tragedy, a change in occupation, an open door, a new opportunity, something we choose, something we don’t choose,  or simply something that was normal to us that is now changed.

Lately our family has been in a transition of a season in life. I’ve had many moments of random transitions which you can recover from quickly but in the transition of a season.. sometimes that takes longer to fully come to grips with what normal will be.  I’ve had a few seasons like this in my life.   One was when our son Frankie came home from Haiti. At the time when we were filling out our adoption paperwork it was taking 4 years to adopt from Haiti.  And we knew how long the wait would be going into it.  So imagine my shock when 2 years in, a devastating earthquake hit and within 2 weeks our 3 yr old son was home.  We went from thinking we had 2 more years of waiting for him to in a matter of life circumstances  “He was home.” Our normal was redefined.  I remember the scrambling, the thankfulness, the shock, the fog that kicked in during a transition for us that came out of the blue.  I was beyond thankful for community and friends during that time that helped us along the way.  I tell people all the time, I can’t remember the days during that time, it was all a fog for the first 3 months but we got through it… we made it through the crazy transition.  And one day, the fog lifted and I put my feet on the carpet floor and realized we survived and were living in the normal again.

And today I remind myself of his faithfulness of my past.  Once again, I’ve been caught a bit off guard with a season of transition in our lives, as one chapter is closing and another one begins.  And even though I might not have chosen to end this chapter in this season or time or way, I do believe that THE chapters of my life have not closed and his work in my life is not finished.  That God’s opportunity to continue to do what only God can do is still alive and parting the fog for me today so that I can see again.

And He’s done it in beautiful ways.  Through the unexpected, through the joy, even through pain and brokenness, He always brings about HIS beauty.  He has stabilized my footing.  He continues to make straight my path.  He has brought Grace into my life and has continued to help me navigate what is in front of me.  He is restoring and redeeming.

And even as I type out knowing it’s HIS Grace.  He has physically given us a new place to orbit from ministry out of and how good and perfect that the place is called,  GRACE Fellowship, In Snellville GA.  Isn’t it just like God to do that.  We’ve been on the ground now for a week.  And even though we are still getting settled and are still in major transition, it feels so good to be here.

I remember many weeks ago when they welcomed us to the family and prayed over us for our next season of ministry.. and his Grace I felt flooding over us in many ways.

So today I celebrate the power of the resurrection. I refused to let the enemy tell me that because a chapter had closed, that everything had closed.  I refused to continue living in my brokenness, anxiety, depression and worthlessness that the enemy fogged over my life. Instead I continued to chose that the battles of my life were not mine to fight but HIS.  And he has delivered me.  God is my warrior, my defender, and He is Faithful.  And he wants me to fully live each day with everything that I have.  So even though my heart is still sad about our departure from Pawleys Island and what was, I am fully excited about what is and what could be.  We have arrived on the ground here in Atlanta and are so thankful.  We have community, we have mission we have WE before ME.

If you are in a place of fog I’d love to encourage you today. Sometimes it takes time for it to lift.  But you can begin to start seeing again by taking even one simple step… Decide everyday regardless of what you can or can not see… to posture your eyes upward. It made every difference to me in the fog.  “Just begin looking up.  Looking up is a powerful alternative in the midst of a storm and it does not require that you change your location, or even change your physical posture.  It just requires that you shift your eyes from wherever you are.” Louie Giglio

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.