I’m a bit late, but every year around my birthday, I try and do a reflective post to look back at the year I just completed and look forward to the new year ahead. It’s always interesting to me to look back on these posts to see what was most on my mind at that time, and how that changes from year to year. What’s especially interesting is to see how often the growth I push for seems delayed, but when I look back over years, I can see strong evidence after several years that I was making progress all along.
The biggest thing on my mind right now is the idea of “assurance.” I’ve had fear be a dominating emotion for a lot of my adult life, in ways both subtle and not subtle. It is something I have worked hard and actively to counteract, as it’s not the way I want to live my life nor the kind of example I want to set for my kids. I think I’ve usually done a pretty good job “hiding” it, but often when I poke into why I do certain things, fear has often been the motivator:
- Fear of something bad happening
- Fear of what others will think
- Fear of getting hurt
- Fear of getting publicly called out
- Fear of not being strong enough
This wasn’t even something I recognized until the last several years, and it’s something I’ve studied and thought a lot about.
And even though I have plenty of moments when it’s still cropping up on well-worn thought loops, I can also now see plenty of new paths that are NOT being forged by fear, but rather by what I consider its opposite:
Trust.
Before, my fear motivation was all about avoiding hurt and pain and uncomfortable situations. My focus was so much on the avoidance that I missed out on the flip side, which is what happens when your focus is on what you want to embrace rather than what you’re trying to avoid.
I am NOT perfect at this and am still actively working on it, but I feel like the past couple of years, I can say I am seeing the fruits of my efforts in very real and tangible ways.
And as I’ve chosen to put my focus on having trust (particularly in my relationship with Jesus Christ) and on embracing all the fruits of the spirit that He wants for my life, I’ve started to feel a soul-deep assurance that all is well. Even when I’m stressed, even when I’m heartbroken, even when I’m confused or scared or unsure or feeling insecure, all is well.
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact thing that flipped the switch for me, but I can tell you a big one that happened last winter.
After our first year flower farming full time (aka, last season), we were able to scrape together enough to live on, but going into the winter, things did not look great. I was constantly stressed about money and constantly questioning whether I’d misunderstood the feeling I’d had that we should go full-time with flower farming (even though I really knew deep down I hadn’t misunderstood at all). The fact was just that it was hard, and I was tired of all the hard.
Then, starting around last Thanksgiving and continuing into this January, we had so many financial miracles that weren’t just of the “miraculously got exactly the amount to just scrape by for a minute” kind (although there were countless examples of that, too).
No, we got undeniable financial miracle windfalls that literally felt like the Savior Himself was putting His hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eyes, and saying, “Torrie, I’ve got this. Will you trust me, already?”
I cry every time I think about it.
Because since then, I have felt like I have a deep-seated assurance in the very depths of my spirit that everything is going to turn out so much more marvelously than I can imagine. That all of the hard things–big and small–that I’ve ever been asked to walk through and carry in my life are going to truly be for my good, and that none of it was accidental. And I’m not just talking about our financial life (although that has majorly benefited from my fresh mindset). I’m talking about all of it–my feelings about my oldest getting closer to being a teenager and dealing with the challenges of that, my uncertainty about how the world will accept my youngest with her Down syndrome diagnosis (and the medical challenges she is dealing with), the uncertainties of running my own business, the weariness that comes whenever I read the news. No matter what it is, I have felt, more strongly than I can possibly convey with words, that as long as I put my absolute trust in God, I literally have nothing to fear.
So as I head into my last year of my 30’s, I am holding to that assurance. I have felt it this year, as we’ve made huge strides in our business, in the way we parent our children, and in our marriage. And I feel down to the most molecular level that it will continue to be so if we continue to trust and to seek that assurance from the only One who can truly assure us of anything.
All is well, my friends.
