We moved to Pennsylvania from Virginia when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Adeline. Some of you have heard this story – how Addie was born 5 days later in a previously unplanned home birth, with a sweet Mennonite midwife – the only practitioner who would take me so last minute (I still thank God for Shirley!).
We moved to Michigan a year later for a job with better hours, so Josh wouldn’t be gone all the time. Josh was laid off from that job only nine months later – when I was 7 months pregnant with Eva. I remember the rock in my stomach as his car pulled in the driveway only two hours after leaving. I knew right away what had happened. I knew, because when I was eighteen years old the Lord revealed to me, in my fledgling walk with Him, that my future husband would one day lose his job and I would have to be ready for it. It was odd thing, Him telling me that so young. But it stayed with me. So the day it happened, there was a rock in my stomach. But there was also an overwhelming peace.
That was the beginning of Every Woman a Theologian. Years of writing, years of quietly sharing thoughts on the internet, years of meeting many of YOU in comments. The month Josh lost his job, I uploaded a PDF ebook of Christian Cosmo, a compilation of all my work on biblical sexuality. I priced it at $10 even though people told me to price it higher. “I want the girls who need it to afford it,” I told Josh. But I was scared. We needed the money.
That ebook paid our bills for the next two months. It opened the door for more ebooks. It brought us Eric, our creative director, who inspired a real library of books and products to equip families to know what they believe and why they believe it.
And then it happened again. I was pregnant. Josh’s job put our family in jeopardy. I can’t share details here out of respect for the people involved, but suffice it to say that my husband had to leave his job – not because he wanted to, not because there was better out there, not because he was discontent or bad at his work. I laid in bed with three months to my due date, tears streaming down both sides of my face. What are we going to do?
When our five-year plan became the right-now plan, instead of looking forward, I looked back.
All those years ago, God was faithful to bring us an apartment, a midwife, and a church within a week of arriving Pennsylvania.
All those years ago, God was faithful to provide for us when Josh was laid off.
All those years ago, God was faithful to take care of us through the hands and feet of our local friends when I broke my leg, had surgery and was in a wheelchair for two months.
All those years ago, God was faithful to miraculously sell our house in town and bring us Willows Bend Farm, where there would be buildings for the future EWAT warehouse we didn’t know we would need.
All those years ago… time and time again.
People question whether it’s worth it to pray or follow God if your circumstances don’t change. But our trust is not in changed circumstances. Jesus PROMISED we would suffer: “In this world, you will have trouble – but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Our trust, then, is not in what God DOES but who God IS.
God is faithful. His faithfulness is what I fix my eyes upon, my heart upon, my will upon.
As we walk through a new season that is difficult in different ways, instead of looking down (fear) or forward (anxiety) or to the right and left (comparison) – I look back. God was faithful. He has not changed. No one else is responsible to save me out of this situation, to make me feel better about it, or to equip me for it. I am centered in His faithfulness, and anything else I get from anyone else is just whipped cream on top.
The contentment and strength and rejoicing are found here, in the overcoming faithfulness of God.