I\u2019m just going to go right out and say it: The Lord dented my life. Before this year, my life felt like a car in fairly decent condition set to cruise control. Until, that is, God lovingly struck me on the side and changed the course I set for myself. Unexpectedly, it didn\u2019t feel like I had much control over my life anymore. The pace that I set, the destination that my heart wanted to go, was thrown off.<\/p>\n
When I started to get sick I was frustrated because I was sure my plans (for my career, when I would get married, and how much savings I stored) were going to pull through cause I had the power\u2014the control\u2014of my life. But I guess that was the thing\u2014I<\/em> was in control and that wasn\u2019t how God wanted it to be.<\/p>\n Giving up control of your life is such a scary thing. There have been countless nights where I would sit on the floor of my bedroom and tearfully asked God \u201cto please fix me because I don\u2019t know how to fix myself anymore.\u201d Enter Joseph. At the beginning of his story you\u2019d think that Joseph had it made. He was his father\u2019s favorite and was handcrafted a beautiful multicolored coat as a sign of his love. However, little did he know, all this was causing his brothers to grow jealous.<\/p>\n Joseph was known as \u201cthe Dreamer\u201d so I\u2019m pretty sure he had plans for his life. And, well, I\u2019m also pretty sure his brothers plotting to kill him and throwing him in the well wasn\u2019t part of it. When this happened, he probably had no clue what was going to happen to him. But God did.<\/p>\n HE was working when he was sold to Potiphar. <\/strong><\/p>\n HE was working when he was wrongfully thrown in prison. <\/strong><\/p>\n HE WAS WORKING.<\/strong><\/p>\n In Genesis it says that:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n –\u00a0<\/em>Genesis 39:2<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe Lord was with Joseph\u2026\u201d Sometimes, it could feel like the Lord does the whole \u201chit and run\u201d with our lives. This isn\u2019t true. When he \u201cdents\u201d our lives he does not leave us alone\u2014he, instead, draws nearer to you and gives you His grace and strength (II Corinthians 12:9). Through the time Joseph spent being tossed around Egypt the Lord was doing great behind the scenes things that were not yet revealed to him until later. In the end Joseph had an amazing future\u2014something he probably would have never achieved if God did not interrupt his life.<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t be telling you the truth if I said that I\u2019ve wholly accepted this dent in my life. In fact, there is a page in my journal where I planned out my dream life from 2012-2016 that I look back on every now and then (and sigh a bit). Needless to say, things haven\u2019t turned out how I expected and I\u2019m way off track from my 5-year plan. But for now, I think I\u2019m ok with it.<\/p>\n Always,<\/p>\n Faith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m just going to go right out and say it: The Lord dented my life. Before this year, my life felt like a car in fairly decent condition set to cruise control. Until, that is, God lovingly struck me on the side and changed the course I set for myself. Unexpectedly, it didn\u2019t feel like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shiningideas.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}