TO and THROUGH....

**I was asked to share the story of our journey through unemployment in the Thanksgiving service at my church this morning.  As I stood in front of the church I was overwhelmed with gratitude that God provided me with the opportunity to share our story; His story, really.  For HE was the one who provided us with the opportunity to grow, to clear our vision and in the end, find a greater depth to our JOY in the most unexpected of ways.  Thank you, as my readers, for allowing me to share it with you.  Have a blessed day of thanksgiving and may YOUR hearts be filled with gratitude for all of the unexpected blessings in your own lives.

In my kitchen I have a plaque that says, “The will of God will not take you to what the grace of God will not take you through.”

I hung that plaque shortly after a really long series of storms that hit hard in my life where God showed me just what that saying really means.

In March 2011 I was a good year into some pretty rocky storms.  My parents were both battling major health issues and my little nephew was left with massive brain damage after contracting a virus as a newborn.  I was emotionally exhausted from riding the roller coaster of these trials with my family.  So when my husband Dante got notice from work that his position was being eliminated, I wondered how (and why) God could put such a massive trial on us just when I felt I was already spent.

I had no idea I was about to learn just what trusting the Lord was all about.

As many of you who have experienced similar financial struggles and employment uncertainties already know, unemployment is downright scary.  All that you know to be stable and predictable in your everyday life is stripped away. 

My husband was the sole provider for our family of five and his pride and self worth were suffering.  We had no idea just how long this would last, where it would lead us, nor how would we even financially make it if his severance ran out.  We were in the pool of the thousands of others who were victim to the declining economy and there was nothing we could really do to control that other than pray. 

Back in those early days our prayers were so self-seeking.  We would pray that Dante would get the interview, then that he would get an offer.  It was always about what we saw as best and what we wanted.  So many times he would come close to getting an offer and something would fall through, deflating our confidence, igniting the anger and doubt.  As months continued, the panic started to set in.  I was unable to find a teaching position and was working any and every odd job I could find to bring in extra cash while Dante made it his full time work to search for a job, all the while sinking further into a pit of depression.  We both felt helpless. 

Yet there were signs of reassurance that the Lord was caring and providing for us, and our real needs, the ones that HE knew were most important, were being met. Our hearts were humbled as we accepted generosity from our friends, our family and our church.   Bills would come that we were terrified of not being able to pay and someone would anonymously gift us a food store card, or I would get a job that would give the exact money needed to pay a bill; little signs of reassurance that we did not need to WORRY.  God had our backs. 

Yet worrying is a really tough emotional act to just give up.

A year into Dante’s unemployment, we decided to take time every day to pray as a couple and we committed ourselves to it as our Lenten commitment, a giving up of our will in a sense. 

Not once did we miss our time to pray with one another during those forty days, not even when I abruptly went to CA for my nephew’s death.

Our prayers took a real shift during Lent.  They started to become less and less about US telling God what we wanted, what we needed, and more and more of us SEEKING God’s guidance and LISTENING to Him tell us what we needed and where He wanted us.  It was a real breaking of our hearts, hearts that were so stubbornly bound by our own desires and our own self-promotion that they never really had ASKED God where He wanted us.  And we certainly had not stopped to LISTEN.

After our nephew unexpectedly passed away that March, we just really knew that this life was not one that we define.  God creates us, He provides for us, He takes away and He gives.  He defines the parameters of our life here on Earth, not us.  The listening had begun…

For the first time we prayed for God to allow us to submit to His will, and we told Him, together, that where He led us we would follow.

In May of that year Dante received his first and only job offer since being laid off.  It was less than ideal, for it would mean moving our family to Toledo, OH for a job that was a cut in pay from his previous position. But it was a good company and an interesting role… and we had, after all submitted to God’s lead.

Therefore after a lot of prayer, we decided to take the leap and accept the position in OH. God was sending us in a new direction, and we trusted HIM. We began to prepare for life in a new state.

Two days before Dante was to leave for OH he got a phone call from a company that he had interviewed with months earlier in NYC.  They were impressed with him at the time, and now they had a new position opening up for which they felt he was a good candidate.  

What?!  He was JUST about to start this new job, our house was on the market and he was LEAVING!  We had submitted to God’s lead!!  My husband explained this all to them, but they were very interested, and asked if it was possible for him to come in for an in-person interview.

Dumbfounded and confused, Dante went in, that same day.  He was half way to NYC to visit friends anyway, so he took a detour.  After countless interviews where he meticulously planned his outfit, prepared and researched, here he was, at a leading fashion company in NYC unshaven, in shorts and a t-shirt.  He had the unemployed bum look DOWN! 

Six weeks later, after countless nighttime interviews with this other company, all the while working his new position in Toledo, Coach offered Dante a job that he could only dream of creating for himself.

To say we were confused and conflicted is an understatement. We were unsure of what we should be doing since we felt we were following God's lead and He was leading us to Toledo.  Would resigning so shortly after beginning employment be displaying integrity?  Was that what God wanted us to do?!

Together we went on our knees and prayed for guidance, submitting once again to our Father who had brought us thus far. 

Dante accepted that position with Coach, the same day we had our first offer on our house.  We rejected the offer, he resigned from the job in OH and we re-embraced our lives here in PA.  All that we thought we were leaving was ours again.  

God gifted us with the vision to actually SEE it this time.

The greatest gift that came out of those 17 months was the making of our hearts for Him.  Our faith grew from the shattering of our own false-notion that this life is ours to control.  In submitting to His will and praying for HIS lead, we experienced joy like we never would have known.   It took stripping away all of the false securities that we placed our faith in and replacing it with HIM. 

Today I stand in front of you filled with a heart of gratitude.  Gratitude that my Heavenly Father loves me so much that He takes me TO and takes me THROUGH.

Endurance for the Race

Barring really horrific weather, every Sunday morning, after I get my kids' breakfast made and clothes laid out for church, I run.  I run not for the miles or the exercise, although a few hundred calories burned always balances out my weekend indulgences (at least I tell myself that), but I run for the sanity.  I run to clear my head, to think and pray.  I run to cry, laugh, blast music on my I Pod or be silent and just listen.  Some mornings I do all of the talking to God,  or just to myself.  Other days I just absorb the world around me, marveling at how God's beauty is everywhere, ever so perfectly changing with the seasons. 


I wasn't always this type of a runner.  I picked up running again after my third child was born out of a mere desire to loose the baby weight.  I hated every step I took, loathing the burn in my legs and lungs.  I used to tell myself that I could not do more than 2 miles without stopping, and ONLY on a treadmill.  Then 2 miles became a 5K and it was within my comfort zone, so I pushed it a little further.  My runner friends pulled me (literally!) off of the treadmill that I had become so accustomed to and dragged me along with them outside on longer runs.  I would whine and tell them I just wasn't cut out to run.  I hated it.  My knees hurt.  I couldn't do it.  They would just laugh and tell me to trust them, I could do it.   They would bring me on runs where we would get lost in conversation, moaning to each other that we couldn't make it back to our starting point yet knowing we had no choice, so together we would make it, cheering each other on.    Every time I made it another mile without stopping, I silently cried with joy, in awe at what my body could do.   Could it be possible that I was becoming a runner?!  Was trusting in a training schedule all you really needed to do; that and a good pair of running sneakers?!  


Two years ago I ran my first half marathon.  Yup, the same woman who said I could not run 2 miles without stopping and was NOT a runner.  Hated it.  Knees hurt.  Couldn't do it.  Ironically, as I look back, it was that same year that God started changing not only my physical endurance, but my endurance for life.  The fall before I decided I would even give 13.1 miles a shot, my mom slipped into a dark depression.  My mom, who had always been the one, in my eyes, to have such spiritual strength and faith in God, could not get out of bed.  Being the oldest of four and a Type A, take-charge, control freak, I jumped right into trying to "fix" this crisis.  This was the first tremor of trial my family had really had to face, the first quake that life doesn't always go as planned.  Yes, my brother's divorce from his high school sweetheart was rough, but we moved on.  Tragedy had never really fallen upon the Geng family, and we lived in ignorant bliss that it never would.  But to see mom not being able to cope, or even get out of bed for that matter?!  Shaky ground, when I had gone 35 years depending on my parents to be my rock.  Not to mention, I could not understand how if you had such a strong faith, how could you get so depressed?  Couldn't you just pray your way out of that?!  We were a good Christian family.  Wasn't this kind of depression for the lost and faithless?   Now, I am no stranger to depression and anxiety.  Zoloft had kept me even-keeled for years, but I surely did not have the faith my mom had, so that was understandable to me.  Hmm...little did I know God had a lot of work to do in me to change that viewpoint on faith!


Anyway, back to the year God started training me for life.  That Christmas season mom's depression had gotten so out of control that we decided, as a family, that we had no choice but to check her into a hospital, for the first time.  Anyone who has ever had to face depression on this level knows how ugly and gruesome it is, whether you are the one caught in its ugly grip or the one watching someone you love suffer in its hideous chains.  My mom just seemed so broken, and with that, I felt so broken; our family was broken.  


It was right about that time that my running started to shift and settle for me.  I started to wake up craving a run, needing the physical and emotional outlet, wanting to tie my running shoes and see just what I could accomplish on the pavement that day.  I started to talk to God on my runs.  My prayers were not just confined to words lifted up as I drifted off to sleep or blessings said with my own little family before meals.  He started to call to me and meet me on that pavement that spring, placing a longing within me to get out and run.


That spring, as I trained for my first half marathon, slowly my body began to endure the miles, my lungs and legs could take me further and faster and I was DOING IT!  I will never forget the day that I went to go for a run one Sunday (back then more because it was just one of the days I could schedule in the miles) when I found my I Pod dead.  I panicked.  I couldn't run.  I couldn't do it without music!  Eminem, Black Eyed Peas, JZ....they all fueled my body and made me run!  I sat there, unsure of what to do.  Something (Someone!) whispered to me to get my shoes on and just go.  I told myself that I would just do a few miles and then come home.  In the silence I had no idea what to do; I could not "Be still"!  But just as I was about to turn around, I started praying.  I started talking to God in a way that I never really had before.  And when I was out of words, I was silent.  I listened and looked around at what surrounded me.  I had never really noticed how pretty my little corner of the world is, how blessed I was to have such a gorgeous trail to run on right by my home!  I ran 8 miles that day.  With no music.  Yup, same woman who had told herself that she could not do it.  I started, just started to think that maybe, just maybe I was not broken and that everything was going to be okay.  Mom was coming out of her depression.  We had endured it.  That alone drove my feet to move.


The day that I ran without music strengthened me.  If I could run outside of the comfort zone I had created, I could cross that finish line come May.  I was in training and I was enduring.  Something had shifted in my world, and the first trial of many over the past few years shook me just enough to start to see, feel and hear God, even if it was just with my running shoes on.  


I know you are all wondering where I am going with this.  In my head I see all of the connections between the events in my life, all leading me to sit here and write this blog, tell my little story and share how the Lord has created an endurance in me that far exceeds my ability to run miles.  But the story cannot be told in one sitting.  For I am still in training.  Training for life.  Training for a Christ-filled life.  Two years ago I was not where I am today and God, I pray I am so much further along in my endurance and strength for life every year that passes.  You see, I didn't realize that year that I started my first half marathon training that God would start to break me in order to make me the woman He wanted me to be.   That He would meet me on those running trails and shift me into a life where I would let go of control, little by little, and trust the process of training; let go of the "I can't"'s that I so comfortably would spew out when I really didn't want to push myself or endure.


Running has become the perfect analogy for me in my relationship with Christ.  Today, I crave my runs just like I crave time alone with God.  I have confidence in my ability to put on a pair of sneakers and run anywhere, in any kind of weather, in the same way that I have confidence in God's presence in my life.  I get cranky when it has been too long between mind-clearing runs, and get cranky when it has been too long between my time spent with the Lord.  Don't get me wrong.  I have yet to run more than a half marathon and I still have the voice telling me "I can't", just the same as I have many, many days when life is just downright ugly and hard and the same voice says, "I can't".  I have days when I do not feel the energy I need to get out and run, and days when I do not have the energy to even meet up with God.  But I am stronger.  I can endure, and I will endure.  I just have to train and trust that with each day, with each run, I am one step closer to crossing that finish line with ease.  I just have to put on my running shoes and hit the pavement and God will take care of the rest.  I make the choice; I will endure.


"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."  Hebrews 12:1