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www.haleybodine.wordpress.com.

I have also renamed my blog "Unveiled" in order to more accurately capture the vision of what I pray this ultimately becomes.

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With Audacious Faith, Sun Stand Still

For the last month or so, a common theme has been ringing in my ears. I have been studying I and II Kings, reading Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, and following my former Church home in Virginia on Twitter. Over and over again, I sense the Spirit of God calling me to believe upon Him for big things. Audacious things. Things I can’t dream or imagine. If that is true, the things I am talking about believing God for must be really big because I have quite the active imagination!

For those of you that know me well, you know that I, by nature, am a dreamer. When I was a little girl, I lived in a world of make-believe. My toys were props in elaborate play, and people were players in my imaginary world. I have always been captivated and moved by epic stories. My dream world was adventurous, and bold. I would put my Lion King cassette tape in my Walkman and color in my Looney Toons coloring book while daydreaming about a grey horse being in my backyard, waiting to take me on another adventure through fields of wildflowers. I would spend hours swinging in a tire swing singing at the top of my lungs just dreaming of the big things that life would hold.

That little girl still lives in my soul. I have graduated from my Walkman to itunes, and my Looney Toons coloring book has been replaced with my personal journal and a good cup of coffee, but I still dream big. I still cry at the end of epic movies like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and others because the idea of reckless abandon for the sake of a greater cause speaks to my core.

God is moving in my heart to not just dream, but to believe Him. No, I’m not suggesting that God is going to grant me everything that I ever wanted. He’s not my genie in a bottle that I can simply use for my own personal gain. But I do believe that God is wild, and invites us into daring adventure with Him. Like Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, He is not safe, but He is good, and He is the author of adventure and dreams. God knows that we will only be satisfied by a life running hard after Him for the things that matter eternally, and He invites us into that with Him.

Many of us have read the Bible verse that says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). It is really tempting to read this and think, “Ok, so if I delight myself in God, He will give me everything I want!” However, when we view this properly, what we see is that if we draw near to the heart of God, our desires will transform to align with His heart. His dreams become our dreams. His passions become our passions. When we truly encounter God’s presence, we cannot help but be changed. Our motives and dreams are a reflection of those things we love. As we grow in love with God---His person and presence---our dreams are changed to reflect that love.

So where do we start? I had the privilege to know and learn under the late Dr. Jerry Falwell. Jerry often told students, “Nothing of eternal significance is ever accomplished apart from prayer.” We begin on our knees, humbly acknowledging that our biggest dreams can only be accomplished by God; we are vessels surrendered to the hands of the Master. We ask God for eyes to see what He sees, to love what He loves, and to dream what He dreams. We obey what God has already revealed in His Word, and we wait expectantly for that which is to come. We work diligently and faithfully with what God has already given us, knowing that God cannot bless what we do not do, and that the work we have today ultimately matters along the journey. We learn to be faithful and fruitful where we are planted, and not waste today for the sake of dreaming about tomorrow. Today’s work is the foundation of tomorrow’s dream, and we are to be responsible for that.

So what is it that you are boldly asking God for? 

Valleys of Sorrow to Rivers of Joy

Dear friends, let me first just say that this post is taking a great deal of faith to write. I talk often about being “real,” about living free, about passion for Christ. This time, I’m going to open up about a very personal struggle that is requiring more courage than I can say. I believe that God wants to inspire hope in us all.

For a week I have been grasping at the wind for what to write. I’ve spent a few days tweaking an article about dreaming big, and believing God for big things, but today all I can think about are the valleys of my life. There have been dark, treacherous places in my life that only the Lord could have seen me through. Today, I was overcome with gratitude for those times. That seems absurd to some of you, I’m sure, especially if you knew the specifics of the times I am referring to. Thankful for such pain? Abuse? Heartache? Fear? Sickness?

Yes. Thankful.

I’m not thankful for the experiences in and of themselves. But I am thankful that we have God that doesn’t leave us in the middle of sorrow, tragedy, and fear. He is there with us, willing to lead, comfort, and heal us in the middle of them. It has been the darkest seasons of my life that God has shown Himself strong, gracious, compassionate, and faithful. It is the darkness that drove me to utter dependency upon God’s mighty strength and love to carry me through. It is those times that my spirit was stilled with the song of my Father’s love over me. Most recently, 2012 was a dark season that ultimately showed God’s faithfulness to my weary heart.

Today, I originally set out to write about dreaming big, audacious, God-sized dreams. That post, God-willing, will still come together. But before we get there, I want to come clean about what this last year was really like. Maybe I’m foolish for putting this out there, but that’s what this blog is all about: being real. Getting to the heart of issues, and looking them square in the face knowing that our God is greater than the struggles we face.

My most recent encounter with pain was just last year. In March of 2012 I fell into a dangerous emotional pit. Seemingly out of nowhere I was overcome with fear that gripped me at my core. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t function. I was crippled for months with such great panic, sadness, pain, and fear that I was no longer myself. I was desperate, and anyone close to me could see it. The Lord had taken me through trials and turmoil before, and in those seasons drew me closer to Himself. Last year showed me that He wasn’t finished yet. I knew that if I had any chance of being healed and getting to the other side of the darkness, I had to stick close to my Shepherd.

I cannot tell you the number of times I found myself weeping over the Word of God begging for healing. Begging for freedom. Begging to be released from the grip of such oppression. In the middle of the fight, my husband and I moved our family to another part of the country, and I was starting over building local community. It was a lonely year.

It didn’t take me too long to realize that while God isn’t the author of fear and pain, He was allowing me to experience this season. He didn’t want to torture me, He wanted to heal me of an emotional cancer that was eating at me for years without being dealt with. It had to boil to the surface for Him to carve away at it. I had to face it, and allow Him to work. I had to sit still long enough on the operating table for Him to do what only He could.

For a while I hid. I went off of social media. I quit blogging. I didn’t want to be in the spotlight or public eye. I didn’t want to be known. All of my life, I had been an extrovert that enjoyed being in front of people. And suddenly, there I was just wanting to hide away. But God was softening me. Changing me. Bringing me into a place of gentle dependence upon Him.

I read Psalm 27 nearly every day, asking God to build in me faith to believe it. Just as nighttime fades away into morning little by little, I found myself little by little being set free.

This last year, the Lord lifted my head to stare at the face of my personal “monsters in the dark,” and He showed me that even in the darkness, even in the danger, even in the thick of the shadows of our worst nightmares, He is still good, and His grace will sustain us.

So, reader, here I am. Letting go of fear, and trusting God to do what only He can. I won’t say much more about this last year, except to say that I will walk with an emotional limp for the rest of my life.  As with any major surgery, there will be scarring. But what joy I have knowing that my limp causes me to lean on Jesus even more now than ever. What joy it is to be changed to have to trust God to be in a public blogging forum rather than it being “natural.”

May the God of all comfort be with you in your trials, and your pain. And may His gracious hand cause you to lean harder on Him, to listen to His song over you, and to be greatly encouraged that these dark hours are not the end of the story, but rather darkness leading to a beautiful dawn.

“I will sing of your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.”

–Jars of Clay