God’s Gift of Three
First comes freedom…
I always wonder how other people feel about their milestone birthdays. Age is associated with so many different transitions and seasons in life- what generation we’re from, when we get our driver’s license, or when we’re considered “over the hill.” There have been times I felt older than my years, and there have been times I felt younger than my years. It’s like I’ve been 50% child, 50% old soul my entire life.
I turned 40 in April of 2019. I think I felt more like a child than an old soul that year. A child being called out to grow up. A new decade meant embracing opportunities to grow and mature in my spiritual walk. I love change, newness, and fresh starts. And in January 2019, I was desperate for a new beginning. That year, God would stretch and challenge me in the most unexpected ways. He was going to use that year in a way I wasn’t even aware of until the middle of 2021. I think I’m still in shock even as I sit here now.
2019 was the first time I had chosen a focus word at the beginning of a new year. At 39 years old, I was feeling stuck. Not only did I long to be free of a few specific circumstances, but I was eager for new ways to be more intentional. Conviction had me by the heart, and achieving freedom meant I needed to be more intentional in my relationship with Jesus.
That was the year I joined a group of women for a devotion based on finding fullness in Christ rather than food. I was on day seven of a 40 day fast with over half the year behind me. Let me be clear; I did not completely fast food for 40 days. I did choose to fast sugar, ten percent of three smaller than typical meals, and drank only water for 40 days. Now, this modified fast wasn’t easy, but in my willingness to focus on Jesus instead of myself, I began to really “taste” the goodness of God.
By day nine of my modified fast, God was calling on me to examine the past two decades of my life. Putting them under a microscope and dealing with them in ways I hadn’t dealt with before. It was uncomfortable but necessary.
Going back to my 20’s meant reflecting on a timeline of many firsts. College to career, taking risks, and a new business partnership. Becoming a newlywed with hopes for motherhood, establishing and maintaining new friendships, and traveling to new places. New ways of serving at church and hosting celebrations in my home. My life must have looked like the all-American dream from the outside looking in. Very different from the past three generations of women on my mother’s side, so I thought. Generational curses have a way of distorting your perspective when you’re right in the middle of your circumstances.
While I did a great job making it look like I had it all together (with a smile on my face), my mind, body, and spirit suffered tremendously. The constant need for accomplishment and perfectionism was relentless. I was a peacekeeper, a people pleaser, the agreeable doormat. I assumed responsibility for others’ behavior, apologizing for everything that went wrong or didn’t go smoothly. I feared disappointing others, and I feared rejection. And I cried…a lot.
“Are you looking for accolades? Are you looking for applause? Are you looking for approval? Are you looking for appearance? Because the stuff will kill you. The Devil will make sure you get all of it. Especially early, and especially young, so that you then collapse when you’re unapplauded, when you’re unapproved, when you’re unaccepted, and when you’re unwanted.”
-Christine Caine
Author Christine Caine says this was her story, and I can relate. By the end of my 20’s, many of my” “firsts” felt like failures. One business partnership, three pregnancies, my marriage, a planned adoption, and what felt like everything in between- lost to failed attempts to meet a standard of perfection that didn’t exist in the natural world. All followed by judgment, disappointment, and criticism from those who didn’t know the details of what went on within the interior walls of my life. I had reached a finish line by thirty years old but was sure I had lost the race.
In her book, “Free of Me,” Sharon Houde Miller calls what I’ve described as the “mirror reflex.” I know now that I wasn’t a failure, but I also know I hadn’t been as selfless as I thought I had been over those ten years. I had allowed my self-image and worth to be shaped by people, possessions, and profession. I had honestly unintentionally continued a path that started before my childhood—a course created by women before me. A life I remember my mother frequently prayed would be different for me than it was for her.
Where was Jesus in that decade of loss and failure? Oh, He was there. He was written on the pages of my Bible. He stood beside me when I belted out Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir songs in the alto section of the church choir. And he held me when I sat crying on my closet floor, feeling all alone after putting the foster children to bed at night.
He was there, and he heard my every plea. The problem was I had allowed my external circumstances to become the driving force behind who I was rather than focus on who I was in Him. And it would be another ten years after that season before I experienced what it meant to abide in Him and be truly free of me.
I left my twenties so weary and in need of significant healing. At 29, I went to counseling, learned to set boundaries, and ended toxic relationships that no longer served a purpose in my life. Over the next few years, I realized that we teach people how to treat us and that saying “no” was a healthy practice to incorporate into my life. It wasn’t long before I was told that I had changed…I knew I had changed- but wasn’t that a good thing?
My thirties meant another decade of many firsts- new beginnings, you could say. A decade of new friendships, a new love, a new church, graduate school, and even moving away to another state. But there were times I still wasn’t sure how to navigate my circumstances, and my insecurities manifested themselves in new ways. Even so, I finally felt like I was growing and getting to know myself outside of my former circumstances. And for a little while- it felt like freedom.
For this self-proclaimed recovering doormat, healing became so self-focused that by the end of the next decade, there I stood staring at 40 years old- dissatisfied, discontent, and longing for freedom. I suddenly realized that I had missed out on an entire decade of cultivating a deeper relationship with Jesus in pursuit of finding myself.
The year I turned 40, God shifted my focus from the desire to be free of circumstances to a focus on seeking freedom in Him. I found freedom in letting go of the need for control, and I was finally able to forgive myself for things He had forgiven me for long ago.
I found freedom in being more intentional with the time I spent with Him and in His word. And in those moments of abiding, He revealed the significance of that particular year (and age) in my life. Although math is not my most vital subject, I love number and pattern significance, especially seeing how God uses them over time. Side note- let’s not get crazy and ask me to help your third graders, middle schoolers, or 10th graders with their math homework…I find joy in Biblical numerology.
Anyway, my 2019 journal is full of these examples and lists, and since that was the year I turned 40, I started noticing significance in the number forty, not just as an age, but as a number used by God in significant ways.
The number 40 is mentioned 146 times in the Bible
40 different people wrote the Bible, and there are 40 chapters in Exodus
Moses lived 40 years in Egypt and 40 years in the desert before God chose him to lead Israel out of slavery
Jonah warned Nineveh for 40 days of an upcoming destruction
Ezekiel lay on his right side for 40 days to symbolize Judah’s sin
Elijah went without food and water for 40 days
Saul, David, and Solomon ruled for 40 years each
Through these examples and in my own life, the number 40 has represented waiting, preparation, testing, spiritual rebirth, and death to oneself, all of which speak to freedom as well as patience.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
- 2 Corinthians 3:17
Next comes patience…
With 2020 right around the corner, I prayed daily for the Lord to help me carry over the ways I had grown in freedom. I knew this would mean continuing to abide in Him. Freedom would mean daily devotion and communion- a relationship. And I’m sure many of you would agree, relationships often require patience.
One of my journal entries for the beginning of 2020 includes a written bullet list of three words:
Patience
Process
Perseverance
It didn’t take long to see that my list meant that being patient with the Lord’s process would take perseverance. Although I now had a deeper understanding of what it meant to be free in Christ, I still struggled with patience—like, really struggled. For most of my life, as soon as I completed one thing, I wanted to know what came next, rarely ever taking the time to be still.
Have you ever started a new project or been given an opportunity, finding yourself so excited that you wanted to jump in headfirst? Yeah, me too. Have you ever also realized after a little while that this new thing would take endurance? Yep, me too. Kind of like when you’re excited about painting a room until you’re ready to pass the roller onto someone else after fifteen minutes into the job. We’ve all been there, right?
Early on in 2020, I felt a nudge from the Lord to study the book of Jeremiah. I wondered where this was coming from because I had studied the book of Jeremiah the previous year too. So, at some point, I turned to page 899 of my journaling Bible, and I saw written in my handwriting, “What is the Lord calling me to throw out? What are my idols?” Eliminating sources of idolatry in my life the previous year had brought me a significant amount of freedom. But what did the book of Jeremiah mean for me as I grew in patience?
If you have ever studied the book of Jeremiah, you may know he was a prophet of persistence. And he continued to deliver for and serve the Lord regardless of defeat and disaster. It took me months before I realized why God had me return to Jeremiah that year. Months of going back to the same passages to receive what He had for me. The themes I consistently saw in the margins of my Bible include:
being equipped by God
carrying out God’s plan and not my own
finding rest in God
obedience to God
the dangers of self-reliance
God’s determination of my footsteps
hope in God
confidence in God
trust in God
Looking back to 2020, I don’t have any written journal entries about the word “patience.” I see notes in my Bible, a lengthy list of devotions on my Bible app. on my phone, and I remember thinking about the endurance it was taking to get through that year in general. I don’t know that there was an actual moment of revelation for me that year. It seemed to be a gradual recognition of what the Lord was doing in me and for me as it related to patience.
He helped me navigate a process that hadn’t made sense to me at first. While I wondered, I didn’t waver, and I remained obedient. I committed to my time with Him every morning before doing anything else. I looked and listened for Him throughout each day, found rest in Him, and I meditated on Jeremiah’s prayer in Chapter 10, verse 23, “I know, Lord, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our course.”
2020 ended with me feeling grateful. Grateful for a year of gradual growth and patience in His process. I also understood why freedom had to come first. I saw the ways I had to be free of me and free in Christ for me to be patient with His process. And in my willingness to show patience, He gave me the third gift—the gift of purpose.
Gift three…purpose.
I chose the word “purpose” for 2021, again not fully understanding why or what the Lord would do with it. I guess you could say I was looking for the purpose behind the purpose. By March, I felt an intense urgency within my spirit. One minute I was praying for healing. The next thing I knew, I was making a list of keywords from the past three months of journal entries- words like calling, priorities, gifts, influence, relationships, meaning, gratitude, action, and harvest.
My spirit's urgency and the list I made indicated my purpose was not about me. My purpose would be about how I could serve others. I started asking myself, “What was I birthed to birth? Who did God create me to be? What am I prepared to do for others?” I thought about how servanthood would look different between who I was in my 20s and who I was becoming during this season of life. And it began with not letting my feelings control my faith.
I also knew that what God had for me was in front of me, not behind me. He wanted me to keep my focus on the present because the present is where we seek Him and His will for our lives. I’m not sure of the author, but a devotion I was reading at the time stated this, “Jesus wants us to say yes to things that help us understand who we are, whose we are, and what our mission is.” Soon after writing that quote in my journal, the year of purpose presented two significant changes in my life. Both involved a “yes” and required confidence in who I was.
One of my favorite books is “The Powerful Purpose of Introverts, Why the World Needs You to be You” by Holley Gerth. Gerth has an extraordinary gift in aligning her faith with her life coaching and counseling career. In her book, she gives a holistic perspective on the everyday struggles and strengths introverts typically experience and how those two things can serve a significant purpose in the lives of others.
1 Kings 19:11 became one of my favorite scriptures in 2021. Gerth used the illustration of Elijah’s experience with insecurity and discouragement to describe how she had looked for God within activity, busyness, and her efforts to impress. In 1 Kings 19:11, the same is true for Elijah, as he doesn’t find God in the wind, in the earthquake, or the fire. After all these things, God is found in a gentle whisper.
Gerth beautifully states, “What if we, as introverts, are created to be living echoes of the gentle whisper of God? What if that’s why the world needs us to be who we are? What if that’s our powerful purpose?” While she’s speaking specifically to those of us who understand what it’s like to be an introvert, I believe what God had for me as I read those words went beyond one personality trait I could use to describe myself. Her statement felt like an invitation from the Holy Spirit to live as who I was created to be.
I previously mentioned that two significant changes occurred during the year I chose to focus on purpose. One of those included applying for a promotion at work. I won’t spend much time there, but the significance is noteworthy. I struggled with whether I should apply, partly because I had become comfortable with my current role. In addition to prayer, I used an old-school approach in making my decision- a two-column chart identifying the pros and cons. It wasn’t only about a promotion; my prayers revealed the potential for influence and purpose if I were to move forward with it. Have I messed up since transitioning into that role? Oh yes…but, have I also learned and grown- oh yes. In what ways? In Him, and as the servant leader, He would have me be.
The second occurrence from the year of purpose? On September 7, 2021, I wrote “blog” in my journal. From that point on, it’s as if I was in the passenger seat of something that God had orchestrated for longer than I could comprehend. As the passenger, when I look out the window, I see how my stories and experiences are a significant part of the whole. If I were the one driving, my focus would be much narrower. If we just put our faith in the driver, He’ll get us to where we are meant to go.
Under the word “blog,” I also wrote my favorite scriptures. I thought about why these verses spoke to me more than any others. Why I held them close to my heart and why they influenced me the way they did.
Colossians 3:12
Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
John 13:7
Isaiah 30:21
Hebrews 13:2
1 Kings 19:11-12
Under that list, I wrote words. I wrote word combinations for what seemed like hours. Eventually, I found myself grouping words in sets of three. Combinations that felt significant and aligned with one another. Combinations like:
beginning, middle, end
first, second, third
past, present, future
mind, body, spirit
Father, Son, Holy Spirit
The last three words I wrote on my list were freedom, patience, and purpose. At that moment, I not only saw the goodness of God written on my paper, I felt that goodness deep in my spirit. I realized he had been preparing me as much as He had been rebuilding me. In His way and in His time- He had been refining me. He wanted me to understand His view of me, not mine or anyone else’s.
“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:11-12. In many ways, I grew up on September 7, 2021. Not necessarily in knowledge and wisdom, but in understanding the heart of God and just how much He loves me.
Holley Gerth said, “In the place between what is comfortable and what seems like it will surely kill us is often where we were created to be.” I know that place. It’s a place I’ve longed for and dreamed of and now realize I wasn’t ready for until it would be about something other than myself. It’s a place of growth in freedom, patience, and purpose. I now must believe when we make our growth about Him and not ourselves, He’ll faithfully match the desires of our hearts to His purpose for our lives. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
