Episode #252 - A Journey of a Thousand Miles

It is often that revelation and miracles are not seen or recognized until long after they have occurred.  Such is the case with the story today.

Transcript

Welcome to Episode #252 – The Journey of a Thousand Miles.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Today we are going to take a journey.  I rollercoaster ride of a thousand miles.  They say that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  That step came in the spring of 2019.  I had been spiritually troubled for a couple of weeks.  You know that feeling that the Lord needs you to take the step into the dark.  But you don’t know what you will find, kind of feeling.  That is the one.  It had taken hold of my wife as well.  We knew that the Lord wanted us to do something but neither was sure what it was.  After struggling for a few weeks we finally said that we would do anything the Lord desired. And you know what happens when you finally say whatever it takes.

My day at work the next day wasn’t unusual in any way.  Many of you know that I work in commercial construction as a simulation expert.  We use 3D tools to simulate the construction of the building and then work through the issues.  And my day was proceeding as it always did.  About midday I received a call from someone I have never met.  He was a recruiter for a commercial construction company.  I get these calls semi-regularly and I don’t often think much of them.  He stated the companies name and asked if I would be interested in a regional position.  I was working at a smaller contractor in Spokane, Washington at the time and wasn’t entirely sure about it.  But then that feeling came again, you said anything.  This is anything.  You need to pursue this.  I thought well that was a quick answer.  But because I have often been deceived by my depression symptoms, I used a method my wife and I have found helpful in situations of this nature.  We would pursue the position.  If the Lord desired it, then the position would come about and we would move.  We had done this before and the answer had been no.  Although this time felt different, we still were not sure of the answer.  So we moved forward.  Part of our insecurity was that the position would reside in Baltimore, Maryland.  Now I had traveled to the East Coast a couple of times while working for a company that primarily built healthcare.  However, my family had only traveled as far as Nauvoo, Ill.  That was only a vacation.  We had only lived as far west as the Salt Lake Valley.  We had no clue about the culture, the people, the history or really any knowledge about living in Maryland.  So this would be a truly blind move to somewhere we had no connections.

As I pursued the position, it was becoming clear that this move was a real possibility.  This was concerning for more than just the blind move.  We would be leaving our married children on the west coast.  We would be leaving our extended family as well.  We would be about as isolated as you can get in this world today.  When we received the offer, we knew that we were going to move.  That is when the first miracles came.  We received a plane flight and a hotel to come and search for a home from the new company as part of the package.  We spent three days looking all over northern and western Maryland.  At the end of the three days we had found nothing.  At the end of the day, our realtor had just one more house for us to look at but it was in Randallstown.  We did not know it but this town in Maryland is predominantly African American.  That wasn’t a problem for us.  We had just always lived in places where it was predominantly white.  We actually thought it would be good for us and it turned out that way later.  The agent didn’t think we would care for it but if we wanted to see it before we had to leave the next day she would set it up.

We drove by and we loved it.  We asked for a walk-though and it was a wonderful home.  We had one concern.  My wife while in Spokane had become a certified EMT and wanted to continue her service.  It just so happened that just outside of the subdivision we had chosen was a volunteer fire station.  After we walked through the home, we stopped at the fire station where they were having some type of event.  Here the second miracle took place.  Those wonderful people took her in and gave her a home, a connection.  And yes they were majority African American.  I have come to love the African American people for their honest, loving nature, family values and most of all their zest for life.  What a wonderful people I met in Maryland.

So moving day way upon us. We made the move while marrying off one of our sons in Utah.  His miracle wife is a story for another day.  Traveled across the northern US during a wonderful summer.  We signed papers and moved into the home in Aug.  Mind you this was 2019.  I started work and we found ourselves in a marvelous ward.  Things were going well.  As a side note, I had developed symptoms of Psoriatic Arthritis while I served in the bishopric of a ward in Utah before we lived in Spokane about 2007.  I finally gotten a diagnosis in Spokane and had started treatment.  However, the arthritis and a secondary autoimmune similar to lupus had been giving me serious trouble just before the move.  But a third miracle was provided in that I was able to accomplish the move without serious difficulty.  We arrived and began to settle into work, church and family life while exploring somewhat a part of the US rich in history.  And then 2020 came, and with it that now infamous day in March when society began to shut down.  COVID had entered the scene.  Now the shutdown and illness wouldn’t have been so bad, it gave me time to get myself healed.  Yet the Lord saw fit to bring forth another step into the darkness.  As many who listen regularly know, COVID and I do not get along.  After my first infection, I was sick for several months with severe Psoriatic Arthritis symptoms which in turn activated a cycling depression.  This was an unexpected step into the dark that led to a sequence of trusting moments.  One benefit was the closedown of business as this did allow for some healing.  However, even with the strongest level of medication, my body was crippled at times unable to work or even move well.  I struggled through the rest of the year, doing whatever I could to keep my employment.  I don’t remember much of this timeframe.  The illness took a toll.  The following year my health was not improving but I was working and then my body collapsed again with another infection.  This caused serious issues with my employment and I could see the writing on the wall with COVID still causing issues.  I was going to lose my job.  And the reality of construction is that there is no such thing as a sick day.  COVID was nothing more than a strong cold for most people.  But for me it turned into what has become known as long COVID.  This caused significant stress in my family and with my employment.  We needed another miracle. 

I received phone call from a contractor in Atlanta, again out of the blue.  He had seen that I had previously worked in scheduling and wondered if I might want to move to Atlanta.  I was very hesitant at first, as I wasn’t entirely well.  However, I hoped the heat would provide some benefit as the cold aggravated my symptoms significantly.  This job worked out just as the one previous in Baltimore and we moved to Georgia.  For those of you who don’t know about Geogia, it is a beautiful state that has the Appalachian Mountains in the north.  The Atlantic Ocean on the east.  And is the gateway to Florida.  I had never been and so I thought most of it looked like the swampy bottoms of Louisiana and the remainder was made up of something similar to upper Louisiana.  After several struggles to find a home and a couple of visits to Atlanta. We had a similar difficulty finding a home with a similar miracle as with Baltimore, and ended up on the west side of Georgia with several acres and a large home.  We had several family members with us at the time so the large home was even a greater miracle.  

I began work in Geogia with a company that mainly built healthcare facilities and large scale apartment and office buildings.  That job work out very well, until I had three more COVID infections, the last one being the most difficult.  The long COVID again caused employment issue causing me to lose my job for several months. During that timeframe, I worked for two months at one job but was too sick to continue.  After this episode, I thought seriously that I may need to retire early in my career as I was not going to be able to work.  Stress had mounted financially, spiritually and emotionally.  It was during this difficult timeframe that I ended up in the hospital.  They had no diagnosis for me but considering my mental health challenges and the stress, I believe that I had a serious anxiety attack.  It was during this chaotic scene that another job came forth for me to work.  The Lord provided some healing as I went back to work.  I enjoyed that job very much and things were going very well.  My health bounced between “I think I might be able to do this” to “I am not sure I am going to make it to the end of the year”.  And then as most of you know my body finally collapsed in June and I was unable to work for four months.  I spent almost all that time in bed sleeping and resting.  My employer was good to me but they were a little old school and that simply means being sick for four months was going to be an issue. 

Here I was just barely healing from a terrible 4 months and I was going to be unemployed.  I needed a job I could do from home.  We didn’t know what to do.  Thinking that we could reduce some debt, my wife and I thought about and pursued selling our home.  That did not work.  I was able to secure another position with a significant reduction in pay.  And that has been interesting for us navigating tight funds.  

Why talk about all of this?  Two reasons and they are related.  Revelation and miracles are most often seen and recognized after they have occurred. We rarely know that we are in the midst of a miracle.  The Lord is subtle and consistent in his methodology of “Small and Simple ways”.  When you get revelation line upon line, you need some time to build a paragraph and then a chapter.  Most of the time we don’t see the chapter of revelation until it is written.  Many times we don’t see the miracle for what it is until the moment has long passed.  As I look back on the last five years, I see nothing but miracles and yet I didn’t really see them at the time.  As I look back, I have an entire set of revelation novels.  My learning, experience and depth of testimony has expanded dramatically.  So why didn’t I see it.  Why don’t we notice it?  Not sure I have all the answers but my answer to this question is simple.  When the Lord wants to provide revelation, learning, miracles and his influential mark on our lives, he places in difficult circumstances to need the revelation and to need the miracles.  The Lord doesn’t just give us revelation, he gives us experience where the revelation is needed and the miracles are sought out.  We live out revelation, learning and miracles.  They are not theoretical concepts that we can read.  They must be experienced. We must live revelation and miracles not just be taught about them.  Living them etches them on our heart and we become through the Spirit the son and or daughter the Lord desires us to be.

So why do we suffer mental and emotional illness?  Most often it is because we are in the midst of the training program.  The Lord is seeking us out by allowing us to be placed in a condition where he can reveal to us his will and mold us to his character through living revelations and miracles.  As we live them with the Lord he will mold our hearts.  Now a word of caution.  Just because the Lord places us in difficult circumstances doesn’t mean we will automatically learn and become like him.  Laman and Lemuel are a testament to living under difficult circumstances and learning nothing from the events.  When we come to those difficult to live moments in time.  The difference between seeing revelation and miracles and simply living a difficult life is in how we interact with the Lord.  If we are seeking the Lord, we will find that he works in our lives.  This means we need to truly seek him.  If we don’t do so or do so half-heartedly, we will find that our seeking provides no real value and that we are simply angry all the time.  If we are not seeing small miracles in our lives and consistent revelation, then we should evaluate why. 

Sometimes it is just a problem of vision that can be fixed by asking to see that revelation and the changes in ourselves.  Sometimes we are hardening because long-term trials are difficult to manage.  We feel we are being stretched to our very limit and it doesn’t feel much like learning.  It feels awful.  We can confuse those difficult feelings with the idea that the Lord does not care for us or love us and we can at times retire from him.  The reality of the Lord’s love is that if he didn’t love us our life would be easy.  We would not experience deeply personal trials to mold us and change us.  Life would hold little to no value for us.  And so yes this is a bootcamp to some and a torture chamber to others.  How you come out of it depends almost entirely on your relationship with the Lord.  If you don’t see miracles in your life, ask to see them.  If you don’t feel that you are receiving revelation, then ask the Lord to show you.  I know that you will see those miracles and revelation when you ask.  

I had known this for some time about revelation and that the Lord gives far more than we are aware.  But I had not made the jump to miracles, although I should have.  Miracles are most often revelation that we see rather than just feel.  I hope most of all that you see the miracles the Lord has provided in your life and as you go about your journey this next year that you will see the hand of the Lord in your life, through powerful revelation and miracles. Until next week do you part so that the Lord can do his.