Trust Fall

A few weeks ago, I nervously approached my parents after a day of work and informed them that I was leaving my job with the family business after 10 years, without any idea what I was going to do, next.

If you had told me in the beginning of the year that I would be doing something so rash, I probably would have laughed nervously because on some level I knew that's what it would come down to, but would have quickly changed the subject or ran away to avoid talking and even thinking about it.

That's where I was at: fully and utterly afraid of the unknown. In fact, I never realized how much fear I dealt with until God began to poke at my heart months and months ago, telling me it was time to leave.


So what would drive someone as loyal and routine-loving as myself to leave the security of a long-time family job without having another job in place and zero clue what I even wanted to do, next? How about we talk about what DIDN'T drive me to do it in the first place...


My history with God always seemed to follow the formula of:
1)He shows me what's next,
2)I wait for His perfect timing,
3)then I do it.

So when I began to feel that this was my last year at the job, I expected the tried-and-true formula to work in this situation. I began to ask God to show me what was next, but the most peculiar thing happened: I was getting NOTHING. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Not even a faint glimmer of an idea! It was the weirdest thing. Like my brain hit a wall over and over again when I even tried to brainstorm career ideas.

Stubbornly not accepting that perhaps God wasn't going to fit into my convenient little formula this time, I would take a breather and resolved to come back to Him with the same prayer request another day. Surely He will answer me and tell me exactly what to do! Maybe it just wasn't time, yet.

Months went by with the same frustrating results. I'd ask what's next and all I'd get was a resounding silence and the mounting feeling in my spirit of a total discontent to stay where I am at.

What I wasn't realizing was I did, in fact, get my answer every time I asked. I just didn't see it that way.

Until a couple months ago...

I was driving in my car and the same old dead-end litany of frustrated prayers and questions were going through my head when I said, "Okay God...for REAL this time. Please please PLEASE for the love of You, tell me what I'm supposed to do!" As I flipped on the radio and channel surfed, I heard, in the brief moments before moving on to the next channel, a man preaching about the story of Abraham:

"We always want God to tell us what's coming before we move, 

but sometimes, God is telling us to trust Him and go 

before we even have an idea of where He's taking us, 

just like He did with Abraham."

You can guess how quickly I changed the station and said, "Nope! That was NOT for me...."

That's the moment I realized: I had more fear than I ever knew, and I saw once again how little I trusted God. GOOD GRIEF, does that never stop?!



Because God is comical and likes to see us squirm sometimes, at the end of a church service one night, my friend who didn't know what was going on in my heart, came up to me and completely randomly and out of nowhere said, "Hey, let's do a trust fall! You fall back and I'll catch you!" I was so taken off guard and slightly frazzled by the way God was so blatantly going after my issue of fear, that I didn't know how to respond, right away. However, she was so insistent that I finally agreed. The first time I fell back, I freaked out at the last moment and caught myself before falling all the way. "You didn't trust me!" my friend said, jokingly, but gently as well, to the point where it almost made me feel bad. We did it again, and that time, I just let go. In that split iota of a second where fear engulfed me as my body lost control, I chose to let it happen instead of choosing to take it upon myself to be my own savior.

Sorry to disappoint anyone looking for a painfully awkward ending to this story, but my friend did catch me. "See? I told you you could trust me!" she said.

I walked out of church after that feeling a little rattled. I knew what it all meant. How could I not see the obvious? "Alright, God," I said. "I guess this year is all about trust, isn't it?" Although I acknowledged what God was up to, I didn't want to fully embrace it, just yet.


While I had somewhat come to terms with the fact that I was going to have to quit sooner than later, I tried desperately for the weeks that followed to ignore not only what I knew I needed to do, but dealing with the larger issue at hand: I was totally and utterly crippled by fear.

Eventually, I could no longer run away from it and, with the aid of a dear friend helping me to verbally process what I had stuffed down into the deep recesses of myself, admitted that I was scared; Scared of the unknown, scared of God not providing...

Basically, I still didn't fully trust Him. Apparently, writing this previous blog about trust didn't qualify me to clep out of the upper level trust courses in Jesus University. How annoying...

By the end of our conversation, I had finally stopped fighting the inevitable and dropped the denial: I needed to step out in faith and quit my job without having a clue as to where I'd go, next. That odd paradoxical peace of the upside-down kingdom I'm a member of, flooded me as I looked ahead into a daunting dark abyss of everything unknown to me that I was about to step into. I'll never cease to be amazed at how wrong it all appears, but how right it really is to walk by faith.


Of course I never seal a decision without asking God to first confirm that I was really doing the right thing, and talking it over with my husband as well. I mean, this is a BIG decision; it's not like I was picking out my outfit for the day. So I asked God to do what He usually does and send some crazy stamp of approval my way.

That night as I laid in bed contemplating what was ahead for me, I realized something rather funny: this was my tenth year working with my parents, my tenth year knowing God, my tenth year knowing Ian, the tenth birthday of my church, I was about to start a ten-day juice fast the following day, and my deadline to leave my job is October...the tenth month of the year (Oh, and pumpkin spice lattes' 10th anniversary, although that isn't significant, just cool, haha).

HELLO. The girl to whom God speaks through numbers just hit the "confirmation motherload." Clearly, this warranted some looking into! I got right on the internet and looked up the meaning of the number 10. The first article I pulled up totally knocked my socks off:

Heavily paraphrased, it said that the main meaning of the number 10 and the month of October is that it signifies the time to step out and make life-changing decisions, leaving old situations for new and better-suited ones, finally making time to explore your true dreams and passions and figure out your purpose, to take charge of your life and refuse to stay where you have been comfortable for too long, and for things that have been hanging in the air for a long time to finally come to a resolution. "October is the month for new beginnings and forging forward!"

If that wasn't crazy enough, it literally went on to say, "Some people will be looking for confirmation of their life paths and will follow their callings and life missions and purposes, in October." Talk about a straight-up answer!


I went to bed that night still a little nervous, but finally at peace with a real decision.

Just a few days after all of this happened, I told my parents I was leaving.



A few Sunday nights ago, someone gave a word in church about baby eagles. She shared that when they're old enough to begin to learn to fly, the mother eagle makes the formerly cozy nest extremely uncomfortable so they will have no choice but be forced to leave the nest and learn to use their wings, whether they want to or not. I know that I am that baby eagle and I needed God to make my "nest" super uncomfortable or I would never try to fly.

Being too comfortable where we are can make us so complacent that we have no incentive to run after our dreams. Some of us need a twig from our nests to poke us in the butt to make us realize we will never reach our full potential if we don't do something drastic and uncomfortable, and even a little bit scary.

God wants us to take risks. No one ever lived out their full destiny by staying in their comfort zone.   My job was comfortable: steady hours, good pay, reliable and constant work with people I know extremely well. But "comfortable" rarely promotes exploration of ourselves.


We can choose to see the unknown as something to fear, or something to celebrate. Some days are harder than others to have the right perspective when I wonder how we are going to pay the bills or put gas in our cars when I'll no longer have a paycheck to contribute, but I am beginning to see more and more with each passing day that this is the perfect excuse for an adventure. It's something to get excited about, not something to get worried about!

And luckily, I am not in this alone: I have my amazing husband who fully supports my decision and is also learning to trust God in the scary place of not knowing what's ahead for either of us. Being in this together makes it even more frightening or more thrilling, depending on how well I'm keeping my eyes focused on Jesus that day ;-p


Since stepping out in faith and making a scary decision final, I am amazed at how God has come around me to remind me that I'm doing the right thing, as crazy as it looks. It seems like people are coming from every angle talking about trust, ever since I decided to leave my job. When the fear tries to creep in, God is quick to machete that junk to the ground!

My last day of work is approaching in exactly a week from today and I still have no clue what is next for me, but if God has proven one thing, it's that He is faithful and I can fully trust Him.


If He asks me to fall backwards, I know without a shadow of a doubt that He is going to catch me.

I just have to let Him.

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

wherever You would call me...