“I challenged God” I said over an overly priced chicken salad sandwich while eating lunch with a friend. To which she replied, “Oof, that’s bold…you know what happens when you do that. He doesn’t like being challenged. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
No. The answer was no, run for the hills, what the heck was I thinking challenging the Creator? Let me back-up. Rewind. Set the stage for you as to how I got here.
In August of 2023, I felt a stirring inside my chest, stomach, and…well everywhere if I’m totally honest. I had been through therapy for this exact feeling earlier in the year, though I was unable to pinpoint where this was coming from exactly and why. Was it my marriage? My career? My friendships? Myself?
While therapy propelled me in the right direction, I still had this uneasiness in the pit of my stomach that something wasn’t right. Something deeper I couldn’t quite explain, even to a professional.
During lunches, and sometimes throughout the work day, I would take a lap around the building where I used to work. With that walk, I would pray.
“God, show me every detail you have laid your hand on in today. I don’t want to miss an ounce of your glory.”
“God, I have a pit in my stomach and something isn’t right. But what is it?”
“God…help me.”
Everyday I would take this prayer walk and everyday, I would fervently seek for answers. I kid you not, I would ask the Lord if the breeze that blew my hair meant I was about to blow away…and then crack a smile because I noticed how ridiculous that sounded.
Then one day, I was driving home from work and my husband messaged me saying he had something really cool to share with me. Sure enough, that evening he told me about a guy he met…a stranger. This stranger felt compelled to share about his life before Christ and how it was tearing him apart. He told my husband that he challenged the Lord and gave HIM a timeline. Yes, this man gave the Lord a timeline to completely flip his world upside down and make it anew. “If He’s really the God everyone says He is….” and the rest was history.
I immediately broke down as Alan was sharing this with me and I look up only to see tears in his eyes too. This stranger’s testimony, though unknowingly, lit a fire inside my chest. So naturally, I turned to writing to better understand what in the world all of this meant.
Writing turned into praying and before I quite knew what was happening, I gave God 4 months to radically change my life. 4 months to shed light on everything He needed too. 4 months to show me exactly why I have this pit in my stomach so deep therapy couldn’t even dig it out of me.
As the month went on, a friendship blew up and I had the courage to set boundaries which included me saying goodbye (slight nod to Good Boundaries and Goodbyes by Lysa Terkeurst if you haven’t read it yet).
By the end of that first month, I was surrounded by a group of women who welcomed me with open arms. And in this month, I saw God working in me through what I now know as loneliness and provided me with God fearing women to create a support system for what I was about to endure.
Around month 2, I started writing more frequently and wrote a piece for no one’s eyes but my own and found myself drawn to Matthew 7:13-14.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it”
Matthew 7:13-14
Through this, I pieced together the way I have allowed the destruction of my past to weigh me down and hinder me from ever feeling like I was a Christian. And in this month, I found God’s unwavering grace.
“…do not be discouraged by the choices or actions you have made or are in the midst of making. Taking the wrong path does not condemn you to remain on that path forevermore. No, that’s the beauty of God’s never ending love for us. He sacrificed His Son on the cross for our sins so that we may be washed clean at the feet of Jesus. Hear me when I say this, you are more than what your story has told you.
You are more than your past. You are more than your guilt or shame or fear that has its claws wrapped around you so tightly you feel you cannot look it in the face. You are worth a redemption story. And that, right there, is where God places His narrow path, intercepting the world’s path, and beckoning you to simply take the first step towards Him. Will it be easy? Not at all. Will it be worth it? Oh, friend, you will become so resilient through the trials, the tribulations, the agonizing deep work that you’ll need to work through physically, emotionally, or spiritually and it will all be worth the peace that comes in knowing God’s grace He has for you.”
Excerpt from Melissa Anderson’s unpublished draft
Month 3 hit me a bit more personally. Alan and I had grown apart, caught in the battle of busy, and for me stressful, lifestyles/ We rarely had time to slow down to be, well, just us…a young married couple.
We had been gifted a marriage counseling book, The Naked Marriage by Ashley and Dave Willis, when we first got married and if you were to ask us if we cracked that baby open in the 4 years of marriage, the answer was a big, fat NO. Us? Needing a marriage counseling book? Pffft. We’re Melissa and Alan! We travel and love our life and have no kids and a dog and live in Nashville and the world is our oyster and we go to church! Yeah, yeah, I know y’all are rolling your eyes reading this.
The reality of it is that marriage is HARD. And if you aren’t careful, you two could turn into roommates going through the motions without prioritizing the other first.
Cue self guided marriage counseling. We started having honest, raw, and deep conversations that I don’t think we ever had the courage to discuss…even through our dating life. Through those discussions, it opened up doors to how the other was feeling and how we could work together to rebuild a solid marriage again.
Month 4 rolled around and I felt a tightness in my stomach each time I stepped inside the walls my previous job. I felt uneasy, unsteady, and quite frankly I felt like the role I was in wasn’t fit for me. I’m a writer in an analyst position. So, I asked for an internal transfer to the writing department to see what that could be like…and was met with denial. Confused, flustered, and utterly lost, I left my director’s office feeling shook to the core. What was next for me if not this?
And this, my friends, is where God took His challenge and said said check-mate. He removed me from this position with zero plan lined up. ZERO. I had absolutely nothing distracting me from Him.
Stay with me now, because this is where it gets GOOOOOOD.
New support system, new view of myself, renewed marriage, and career path who? I had no clue what He was doing but knowing I had challenged Him, I chose to keep my faith grounded even if everything felt like it had been swept from me. I clung to His Word and His Spirit to guide me. I wrote, I painted, I volunteered in the community, and I slowed down to fully listen to whatever it was He was preparing me for next.
It’s crazy to think how radically your life could change in just 4 months but when I tell you I felt the Lord’s presence and His voice as loud as a lion’s roar saying “Stay with me. You can get through this. Stay with me. You can do this. STAY. WITH. ME. I am Yahweh.”
I clung to His Word.
The LORD will fight for you; you need only be still (NIV)
The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace (KJV)
The LORD himself will fight for you; just stay calm (NLT)
Exodus 14:14
So, I waited. I waited in silence. I waited in stillness. I waited in peacefully and calmly. I waited.
And it was only then, when distractions had fully ceased, I was met with direction to move forward. I applied for jobs specifically to what I was looking for in a career path, not taking the first who offered me the job (though great as those companies were). One stood out to me over the rest and ended up accepting a job offer for a dental practice with zero clinical experience. I’d say they took a leap of faith on me as much as I did with them but I’m so happy I stepped out in confidence for my new career.
So, why do I share all of this? Why make it such a point to mention what happened in those 4 months of challenging our Creator?
Here’s the real tea…
I had this pit in my stomach for at least a year, if not a little longer back dating from my journaling to Summer of 2022. It’s now 2024 and I didn’t even act on it through the eyes of the Lord until the end of 2023.
That’s 2 years of uneasiness I pushed down, ignored, and tried to find worldly advice instead of turning my eyes to the Lord first and foremost. Therapy is a beautiful thing and I’ve seen it work wonders in some peoples lives. However, though therapy was the first step to questioning where I stood with the Lord, it was not the end game for my story. 2 years of angst and pent up feeling without knowing quite how to articulate the issue has since turned into utter peace through the turmoil.
Challenging God happened to be the best thing for me, my marriage, and my future with where He is leading and I am simply following.
I share this not as a “look at me! I listened to God’s voice” but as a wake-up call for anyone who’s been wrestling with unsaid angst.
I share my story of challenging the Lord because it’s terrifying…it was terrifying and to this day I still can’t believe I seriously challenged our King to a duel.
But I can confidently say that the pit in my stomach has since been dug out, my marriage is healing, I look forward heading into the office every morning, and I found a new peace in knowing the Lord is in the most minute details, even through the turmoil; the battles; the internal struggles.
He is there and ever present.
He is in the details.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6
And He is waiting for you to call upon Him. What are you waiting for?
Check-mate.
Simply Blooming Grace 