Stepping Out In Faith

When was the last time you tried something new?  Whether it’s a recipe, a new job, or even a first date you had to step out of your regular comfort zone, willing to try something new.  That willingness is stepping out in faith.

Yesterday was a stepping out in faith kind of day.  I watched my daughter go through an hours worth of visual testing, seeing her want to cry from frustration and from not being able to please the tester with the results.  It was unbelievably hard trying to keep myself from lashing out at the tester because of Nora’s frustrations.  You know God’s testing you when you hear a professional who has done this testing for many years say, “well, I’ve never seen that before”.

Great.

We survived.  After all of that, she has a new prescription- bifocals for reading.  Seriously…bifocals for a 7-year-old.  Evidently her eyes need retrained on how to focus and that is part of the process.  Instead of wearing her glasses all day like she has been for 6 months, now she’s only wearing them at school and at home to read.  When she’s home, we’re supposed to put tape on the top side so she can’t see out of that part of the lens, training her eyes to refocus.

We go  to Omaha in a week and a half to get the rest of the results but that is the beginning of this journey.  It’s scary.  Not life and death scary, but scary none the less.  The unknown is scary.

We had promised Nora that we would go to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  We’d never eaten there before (but definitely will be going again) and the 16 page menu instantly overwhelmed me.  I’m a creature of habit.  At Hunan’s I get garlic chicken.  At Red Lobster I like shrimp alfredo with Cajun seasoning.  I’m predictable 90% of the time.  I do go off the grid occasionally, but not very often!

I could tell when I took the girls to the counter with the many, many flavors of cheesecake they felt the same way I did about the menu.  But fearless Nora glanced them all over, said a few looked delicious, and within seconds chose strawberry.

Is trying a new food and new restaurant a huge deal?  No.  But it’s stepping out and having faith that what you order will not only be good enough to eat, be worth the money it cost to buy it, and be good enough you want to come back.  (And it all was!)

Not long after we got home I had to step out in faith again.  This step came in the form of being a farmwife and helping Jason with the cattle.  Normally I’m the sidekick, not on my own.  However, Jason was at the other farm checking the cows and baby calves who had been born that day and wasn’t around to help me this time.

Maddie and I were feeding the 4-H calves and she was giving them some extra attention with the beautiful weather we had yesterday.  I decided I’d try to pen up one of the momma cows and her newly acquired adopted baby calf (for those of you who’ve followed on Facebook, this is the same baby that her real mother didn’t want her either, so now she has a 2nd mother, whose baby died last week).

This baby is my little #7 who originally was named Twinkie but has been ironically renamed “Lucky” along with her little friend, Brownie (my kids like to name animals after food, evidently).

 

To make a long story short, it usually takes Jason less than 5 minutes to get mom and Lucky into the shed so Lucky can eat.  (If we bribe momma with grain and hay she’ll let baby Lucky eat, otherwise she kicks at her because she knows it’s not her baby).  Because of this process, Lucky associates both Jason and I as her mother because when we’re around she always gets fed.

It took me over 20 minutes just to get Lucky and her new momma in the shed, and I was about to the point of giving up.  It’s not easy to sort animals by yourself!  I finally did get them penned up and was feeling quite smug with myself.  Lucky took another 25 minutes to eat, poor girl was hungry!  But I did it on my own.  Lucky was happy with a full tummy, momma was happy that I let her out of the shed (with a full tummy of treats) and I was happy that I tried something I’d never done before.

My point to all of this is this:  sometimes you take a leap and fall.  Other times you fly.  But unless you try, you will never know your own capabilities.

If you’re not up for a leap today, how about a bounce?  I have faith in you!

Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!