As God Enters Our Lives: Confidence to Develop God-Given Strengths

Yesterday my youngest daughter opened the e-commerce doors of her design business, corralling a myriad of moving parts to enable online ordering, the Lucite division being one of several product lines.

Only God and Katie know the heartache and triumph that step celebrates. Like many entrepreneurs, she started at our kitchen table around the age of five, always designing, with me always picking up scraps from new creations that only her mind could envision.

Only God knows how he gave her the confidence to never give up.

She was in college when I suddenly offered, "You are going to start your own design business!"

As we know, mothers don't usually fare well telling their college daughters what they are going to do, and this was no exception. But the quick hostility of her reply caught me off guard: "That is ridiculous!"

I have often pondered her words, wondering if I didn't unwittingly strike at the heart of her fear--fear of wanting such a life but wondering if she had what it would take.

Someone told me once that:

Courage = Our Fear + God

We take our heart and hard work and fears to God and he is free to fashion them into something for his glory. Katie wears Christ without saying a word--a quick smile, compassion that brings her to tears in unlikely places, and a heart for women in Rwanda whom are yet another part of her business.

Her faith has been through its own smelting process, always to extract utter truth about God, regardless of the religious statements swirling around her. Her idea of pursuing God includes going to Harvard to learn Greek and Hebrew (okay, maybe that bent comes from her dad) so she can someday hear him in his most authentic words. Never one to dawdle, she will allow that season to carry her even further into the heart of who he is.

Katie has more confidence than anyone I know. And because I was there for her history, I know she allowed God to enter her life over and over and over until it galvanized her strengths into an offering to others that has the aroma of Christ packaged into it.

Only God knows her future. I thank him for never letting go when either or both of us might have. I hope her message of endurance emboldens others to allow God to enter in and supernaturally seep in confidence, little by little, until a dream is born and Christ is portrayed.

Thank you, Katie, for never giving up. 

Thanks, God, for the lessons I have learned.

Tomorrow: The draw in our souls of simply wanting to be with God, one on one.

Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.