Before I get to the "aha" (for lack of a better term) moment, I will just give you some "life at the moment" background.

Life is pretty good in the Toews house. Brad and I have a great marriage, not without it's issues and ups and downs, but we can honestly call each other best friend, and we are a team in everything. Our kids are pretty good kids too which I'm sure is all by God's grace to them and to us! We love our home, our church community, have wonderful friends, and in general do not "want" for much... we float through life feeling pretty good about taking care of everything all by ourselves (dun, dun, dun... foreshadow alert).

Last year after making some pretty poor choices and listening to advice without doing our homework, we got to the end of Brad's first full year of self-employment without NEARLY enough money in the bank to pay for our taxes. We have spent this whole year paying off that tax bill without having the money to set aside for this year's taxes and also pay our living expenses, so we find ourselves at the end of what feels like a LooooonG year right back in the same situation, without a lot of hope to see an end in the near future. We've spent a good portion of this year feeling ashamed and embarrassed about the hole we found ourselves in the bottom of, shovels in hand. We even felt each in our own way that we couldn't possibly rely on God, or even dare ask for His help because our situation was of our own doing! Stay tuned for how God is working in this situation!

A couple of weeks ago we were booked to go to a Life Group leader's retreat with our church. I was on the planning committee and was assigned the job of some welcome baskets to put in the rooms before the guests arrived. Friday morning I was up early, cleaned the house, packed all of the kids things for a weekend away at Auntie Kristin's... only to discover just hours before we were supposed to leave that both Sarah and Carly had fevers. Try as we might to find a solution that didn't involve exposing Kristin's kids to a virus but also involved both of us going to the retreat, we couldn't. I thought, "Fine, we'll both just stay home." I really didn't want to go without Brad. But, the welcome baskets, and my friend Kelly, both needed to get to the retreat center early, and of course there didn't seem to be another option for that that involved me staying home. I left that afternoon certain that I'd just drive up and then turn around and come right back home. I had some words with God.

On the drive up, as much as I didn't want to hear it, I felt God saying, "I want you there. Trust me." It was hard for me to think that God would want me there without Brad though... you know how hard it is to convey things you've heard and experienced at something like that to someone who wasn't there?? So stay I did. I had a wonderful weekend, weird as it was to be in a hotel room all to myself!

It was away on that weekend, that I heard/read some things that really resonated in my heart and came to a much bigger understanding of what my acceptance of what Jesus did on the cross means for me. The speaker was from Soma communities in Tacoma, WA. He talked about how they "do church", living in close community with other believers, serving and giving in extravagant ways, and seeing others won to Christ regularly. What he spoke about echoed in so many ways the things I've felt for a long time God wanted from me.

Two things specifically stood out, and I think were the catalyst for a decision I made on our last day at the retreat. One of them was, "God didn't save you for yourself, but for what you can do for Him." Ephesians 2:8-10 says... God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

I realized that even though my head believed that confessed sin was forgiven sin, that God loves me based solely on what Jesus did for me, and that HE is the power to save, I've lived my life with my head hanging down, never feeling like I was good enough, always thinking I had to try harder, read my Bible more, pray more, to truly realize God's power in my life. My heart simply didn't factor in. I think that Satan has fed me lie after lie to the point where I think I tell them to myself and don't even recognize them as lies anymore. In truth, I was living my Christian life, all about me. But the truth of God's word spoke loud and clear to me and I finally realized that the gospel, the good news is true for me. The gospel message has power, and purpose. For me. God loves me based solely on what Jesus did for me. I can be absolutely CONFIDENT in the grace of God. What. absolute. freedom. And my purpose, is to do "the good things he planned for me long ago." Not on my own strength or for my own glory, but by His, and for His.

Reading this back, I don't know if my words adequately express the way the truth in God's word have absolutely cut through to my heart and that I've truly realized my salvation in a new way. Talking to Brad this week, the best way I could describe it was that I feel like a new Christian. I feel like if I were to share my testimony (oh, wait, I guess this is part of it, right?) that my story now has that moment of a life-altering realization of the truth... something I've always felt was missing from my "grew up in a Christian home, asked Jesus into my heart when I was 5" story. And now, my heart is SO in.

I'll save number two for tomorrow...