Doubting Thomas

It doesn't matter what it is, I always have a season of working through trust. I am a skeptic. I am a doubter. Ask my husband about his twenty-five year old clueless bride during the first year of marriage! He spent a lot of time loving me through some very ugly moments. I am thankful for the eleven years we have been together and all the things we have worked through. He has my heart! He is my best friend and I know he loves me with every fiber of his being. God has used Jeremy to bring healing to my life in amazing ways. He is a gift!

 My friend, Kelly, just moved with her family to the mission field of Cambodia. Recently she shared something with me as she prepared to leave the United States for Cambodia. Her journey was full of excitement but always accompanied by "doubts." What? Doubts? Doubts have always been something I viewed as red flags. Doubts are warnings that tell you, "Don't do this!!!", right? But she explained it differently.

‎"In any given situation you can have both YAY  feelings and YUCK feelings at the exact same time. Feeling the YUCK with the YAY in no way negates the situation or makes it bad." 

Who hasn't had the "yuck" feelings in marriage? Think back to those early years of marriage. Think back to the trials you faced. Now be grown up enough to admit that you have indeed experienced "YUCK" days in your marriage! What about Homeschooling? Any Mom who has homeschooled for at least a year or two has also experienced "YUCK" feelings. It is a part of life! And it usually appears in every single thing we do. Especially in those things we are most passionate about!

When we moved from Dallas to Austin, I was full of "YUCK" days. I doubted every single day! I just knew we had made the biggest mistake of our lives! I allowed the change, financial adjustments,  move with a newborn, sleepless nights, and the pain of leaving home, to be mistaken for a wrong choice. Reality was simple. CHANGE IS HARD! It was a season of working through normal things that happen when you make a move like we did. I allowed so much of the YUCK to infiltrate my days with miserable hours of doubt. Daily!

For me, I have learned that change is always accompanied by "YUCK". In the past I have allowed it to trigger so much fear in me that I've convinced Jeremy we were doing the wrong thing. "If this is right, why am I having these doubts? Shouldn't I have total and complete peace?"  I have thought these things often. Sometimes the doubts are there to signal us to STOP. Other times the doubt is there to walk through. Yes, walk through doubt. See if it exists after you see it through.

I will never forget the day I jumped from running thirteen miles to seventeen miles. My body was used to the thirteen. I had trained over and over again with that mileage. The half marathon distance was no longer something I feared. It was conquered. But the day I ran seventeen as I trained for my first marathon, I completely freaked out in my mind. I got bored, my legs hurt in different places, my feet hurt, my mind hurt. I was stretching muscles like never before. I was training my mind for another forty minutes of running. It was rough! I could have easily stayed at thirteen miles but I never would have been challenged. It is easy to do the same thing over and over again.

Right now I am using muscles in my spiritual, relational and ministry walk that I have not used in several years. And because I have to be honest, I have to tell you that it is HARD. I am freaking out a little. My thoughts are not consistent. I am wrestling, I am fearful, I am skeptically walking through this season. I have incredible "YAY" moments followed by "YUCK" moments. But the difference is huge. I am not allowing the YUCKs to steal the joy from my YAYs. And the thing is, I know this is me. This is who I am. This is something that allows me to trust solely in JESUS. My doubts keep me trusting.

I love where God has us! I love where He has our family. I love that He has placed us with a group of "Truth seekers" who know it is all about HIM! I am thankful that they allow me to have my doubts and that it doesn't scare them off. I need that!

This morning I woke up thinking about the famous "Doubting Thomas". While I have zero doubts about my soul-saving faith, I do struggle with doubts in my life. I have made the mistake so often of allowing the doubt to paralyze me. I have kept myself from relationships because I was too afraid it could not be trusted. I wanted to KNOW it was safe. Thomas was given the opportunity to actually touch the wounds of Jesus so that he would believe (John 20). But we don't always have that kind of proof to keep us going, to keep us trusting. We have to walk through it more times than not.

Kelly's words about the "YAYS' and the "YUCKS" has totally freed me up in the last couple of weeks. I realize my weaknesses, my struggles and the things I am going to have to walk through in order to receive healing from the past. Some days are easy, some days I battle. But, I am no longer afraid! At the core, I know God's got this.

Most people feel ALL of these things I am confessing right here on this blog, but MOST people do not confess it. My honesty sometimes makes others uncomfortable and I run the risk of causing others to distance themselves from me, but being truthful about my journey is how I expose the enemy's lies in my life.

I love this song below. It really ministered to my spirit this morning. And for those who can't figure out why "doubt" tends to be such a struggle in your life, mine comes from past hurts. Past hurt cannot be healed without walking through it. Lots of  YUCKS pop up during the "walk-through". Expect it!