Get Ready… more joy.
“Why aren’t I a joyful person?” Nicole began to wonder after several years. She did not expect to experience anxiety and depression after she had children. The daily struggle of being a mom came out of left field.
“Maybe it’s just not part of your personality to be joyful,” one friend suggested. But Nicole struggled with that. “But… it’s in the Bible,” she thought to herself. “It’s a promise and it’s something I want.”
For many years Nicole and her husband Matt prayed that she would find joy.
“We tried everything the world offered,” recalls Matt. He lists tactics like counseling and medication – even going on a mission trip to Greece. “It felt like we were just trying to manage it, but never really dealing with it.”
Even with the support of her husband, Nicole felt very alone in her struggle. The topic of mental health was less openly discussed even a few years ago. “I was just thinking, God where are you? Why am I struggling this much?”
It all came to a head in November 2018. “I was at the end of myself. I tried everything and I was just so tired,” recalls Nicole. She cried out to God, “I’m so done! I can’t fix it. I’ve tried! I need you to fix it!”
“God really showed up,” recalls Matt. What ensued from that moment was a month of transformation. It started with a conference where it was evident something had changed when Nicole raised her hand to be prayed for. “It was not like me to raise my hand and volunteer,” reflects Nicole. They came over and prayed for her – spoke life into her and took command over her struggle. “I immediately felt like this burden had lifted off me, and that was the beginning of this hunger for God.”
Nicole went home that night and started reading her Bible. Within the matter of a day she read the entire book of Isaiah. “It just became alive … I was understanding it at such a deeper level,” remembers Nicole. “I started hungering for more and more.”
“It was a month of like… wow. We had to process what just happened,” says Matt. He recalls being lost in God’s presence while working – listening to worship music for eight hours a day, and even dropping to his knees in worship (read more about Matt’s journey throughout this time here.) “It was amazing how God showed up, and just watching Nicole’s sudden hunger for the Word, fasting and praying and going after God’s heart.”
The journey of transformation
November was a monumental month for Matt and Nicole, but there was still a lot of growth that continued to happen in the months that followed.
Nicole’s newfound hunger for the Bible continued to grow in her. However, the busy mom realized that she had to find more time to read it.
“But I hated getting up in the morning,” confides Nicole. With having kids she cherished every ounce of
sleep. Yet she felt in her heart that she should be getting up early to read her Bible. “I would try and then fall asleep and get discouraged,” Nicole recounts. It was a constant pattern. So one night she decided to pray.
“God – if you want me to get up early and read your Word, you’re going to have to do it,” Nicole prayed. She even asserted that she would not set her alarm clock. “If you want to wake me up God, then you can wake me up. I will leave it up to you.”
And that was that. Nicole then went to sleep.
Sure enough at 5 a.m. on the dot Nicole’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at the clock. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered. She didn’t feel at all tired. “You woke me up!” she said to God, in awe that such a simple prayer was answered.
She read her Bible for an hour and still she was not tired. She went through the day with the kids and the chores. And still she was not tired. “Will you do it again?” she asked God that same night.
And sure enough, for a month straight the early energetic mornings continued. “Everything I was reading was coming alive to me,” says Nicole. “It was such a deep time of communing with Him.”
Nicole points to Colossians 1:19 - For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. “And it also says the Father is in the Son and the Son is in me,” notes Nicole, in awe that if the fulness of God was pleased to live in Jesus, “then the fullness of Christ is pleased to live in me. It meant that I could have things like joy, which was something that I prayed for, for many years.”
Nicole’s journey to joy has been profound as she continues to grow in her discovery of who she is in Christ. “I decided I’m going to act on who I know I am in Christ rather than reacting to what my flesh is feeling.”
There are still days when things can be hard. “Even when I find myself getting frustrated with my kids, I can look at my emotion and know that is a feeling of the flesh, and I have the opportunity to take that off and put on his righteousness,” says Nicole. “It’s a mind switch. Now that I know who I am and what it actually means to have the fullness of Christ in me, I can experience joy like never before.”
Get Ready Red Deer
Nicole and Matt feel that what God is doing in their lives is happening all across Red Deer. “We’re not the only ones. We just feel like God is moving in Red Deer and when we talk to people they seem to be learning the same things at the same time,” says Nicole, describing a communal journey.
“At Crossroads we are Getting Ready. An important part of this is reading the Word as it gives life, and listening and relying on the Holy Spirit every day. That makes all the difference. We feel like God is up to something and we are so excited and encouraged by what we’re hearing and what God is doing. It’s bigger than us.”
