Dare You!

Yesterday was a fun and busy day.
Guess who lost her first tooth?

The tooth fairy visited our house last night and Kaylee was very excited about that!

We all went to church yesterday, then we went out to eat for lunch.
Later that afternoon, we dropped the girls off at Grandma's house to go swimming and then Morgan and I went to the movies. It has literally been years since we've been to the movies together! It was fun and the popcorn was yummy! Then, we went to pick up the girls and ate dinner at Grandma's house (my mother-in-law).

At church yesterday, I think the message was meant just for me. LOL! We were talking about faith. Our Pastor said that faith is not the elimination of risk, but rather the promise of it. To refuse risk is to choose not to live. He said that faith is revealed as courage. God will never waste a hurt or a failure. It may be the very thing that leads to the next opportunity. Faith translates to trust.

He used the example of swimming. When we teach our kids to swim, one of the first things we will do is get them to jump into the water and we will catch them as they jump in. They begin to trust that we will be there to catch them, so they aren't afraid to jump in anymore. But, sometimes, we might even let them go under the water on purpose, just so they can get used to the water. We know that if we don't do that, they may never be able to move forward and really become unafraid of the water. I really liked this example, because I think that is what God does sometimes to move us forward. He's always there, but sometimes, He will let us go under that water just to show us that we can do it. He knows that's the only way for us to move on and learn more. Sometimes, we don't understand it and we take it as He wasn't there for us, but He was always right there, but He loves us enough to know what's best for us, even if we don't always see it. We have to trust him and have faith that He is always working with us to get us to the next level.

At the end of our service, our music guy Mark sang this song:

Then, our Pastor dared us to move. He dared us to step out in faith. We can risk it all with Him or we can play it safe without Him. This is exactly what I needed to hear and the Lord knew that! He has presented me with so many opportunities to step out in faith and I've turned Him down every time. It's time for me to really trust Him, to not be afraid of failure, and to know that even if I fail or look like an idiot, He will not waste that. He will turn that into the next opportunity if I will just trust that He knows better than I do!
Also, as I was watching this video just now for the first time, do you know what it totally reminded me of and I thought this was so cool?! That guy moving against the crowd was exactly what I pictured when I wrote my last poem, The Narrow Gate. How cool is that, that the Lord would pull this all together and cause Mark to sing a song at church that would lead me to finding a video that reminded me so much of the poem I had written almost two weeks ago? Awesome!
Hope everyone has a fantastic week this week!