I’m writing this blog entry from yet another airplane.  As I often look out at God’s majesty of His creation below, it amazes me how much I still let worry consume my life, and my spiritual walk with Him.

Stephen and I recently had a powerful prayer moment in our living room praying for something specific, only to look up at the end of the prayer and see 3 doves in our backyard. We immediate gasped, “It’s a sign!” We just knew it had to be a sign. After all, doves were symbolic throughout the bible. And while they usually travel in pairs, to see three pecking in our backyard, it was so symbolic of the Father, the Son & the Holy Spirit. How could God NOT answer our prayer after that huge sign?

Only…. Later that day…. We found out….. Our prayer wasn’t answered. I was left in shock. But the doves were our sign? How could the outcome not be in our favor?

I was bummed. Bummed in a belated kind of way that doesn’t really hit you until two days later and suddenly you just want to stay in bed under the covers and not face the rest of the world kind of way. But more so, it was God I didn’t want to face after the disappointment.

Lately I’ve been in a place of asking God for “signs” that He’s still with me when I’ve finally realized, my need for signs was only a substitute for my worry.

For not trusting Him.

For replacing faith.

My faith was being replaced by worry instead of replacing my worries with faith.

I was looking for physical signs as if God owed me for all my years of faith instead of simply continuing in faith. And I was too busy looking for signs in front of me instead of remembering that faith is based on what can not be seen.  (Hebrews 11:1)

I consider myself a faithful Christian. I pray regularly. I attend church on Sunday. I volunteer at church events. But yet, I question my faith all the time. Is it strong enough? Is it pure enough? Is it forgiving enough? Is it giving enough? Am I doing enough to collect my gold stars toward one day hearing Jesus say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

And there are areas of my faith that I am strong and other areas I feel I have no faith at all. I know my God is a big God. I know He is capable of healing and miracles. But how do I have faith in His healing capabilities when I still struggle with questioning why He didn’t heal my dad from cancer? Why did He choose to give my mom a longer life and heal her from her cancer but not my dad? I still struggle with that in the back of my heart. I want to believe. But…. but…. most days I don’t know how to.

I am blessed to have family and friends that stand in the gap of my faith. But is that enough? Do I still get a gold star toward being a faithful servant if my faith has gaps? Or do I lose a gold star if my gaps are filled with worries instead?

I read in a daily devotional I get in my email that:

“The average person’s worry is focused on:

40% of things that will never happen…

30% of things about the past that can’t be changed…

12% of things relating to the criticism by others, mostly untrue…

10% about health, which gets worse with stress and

8% about real problems that will be faced.”

Reading that really shook me up because how true it was. It opened my eyes to the fact that I need to stop today, right now, this moment, to make a choice in changing those percentages.

So starting today, I’m choosing to move forward with freeing up my mind to the 92% of things I shouldn’t be worrying about.

I’m choosing to be at peace with it being ok that I might never know the answers to all my “Why’s” that create the gaps in my faith.

I’m choosing to replace worry instead with faith. Because in the end I would rather err on the side of faith instead of having none at all.

Starting today, what are you choosing?

Recently, we had one of our favorite husband and wife friends come stay with us.  After dinner, my friend went outside to talk on the phone, and came back inside in tears.  My immediate reaction was that she must have heard bad news.  But instead, her response was that it was just hitting her hard all of a sudden how overwhelmed she was at the moment with all of life’s changes swirling around her.  My heart sank for her and I gave her a big hug and did my best to remind her that sometimes God needs to shatter things completely to completely rebuild it into a new creation.

Later that night, at midnight on a Friday night, something business related came up out of the blue that occurred and stressed me out.  And really, it wasn’t just that one thing that stressed me out, it had been a lot of things adding up that were stressing me out.  Then as Stephen and I headed to bed, I completely broke down in tears.  I cried simply because I feel… overwhelmed.

I feel like I’m in a season of being overwhelmingly busy. “That’s good to hear you’re busy” is what we constantly hear as if “busy” equals happiness, or equals success, or equals financial gain, or equals life’s satisfaction.  When really, being busy to me equals stressed, neglecting the gym, not eating right, more airplanes, more uncomfortable hotel beds, breaking out, tears, deadlines, neglecting quiet time, showering less, and all the unglamorous things people don’t realize goes on beyond “That’s good to hear you’re busy.”  When did life get too busy to enjoy life?

My unconscious goal for 2013 has been to simplify life.

To become less busy.

To create normal business hours.

To unsubscribe from unnecessary emails I only delete.

To take time to read more books than social media.

To spend more time with my husband not talking about work.

To laugh more with my dog.

To take bike rides around the neighborhood as the sun goes down.

Some of these I’m accomplishing, most of them I’m not.  In these kinds of seasons of life I cling to:

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Now if I can just figure out how to under-whelm and be still more often.

Then I’ll officially be Superwoman.

Tell me, have you accomplished your Superwoman status yet?  How do you juggle it all?