Last March as our family searched for a new home, we made a list of where we wanted to be and how much we could afford to pay. Because of our circumstances our choices were quite slim. Deep in my heart I knew I would know our home when I saw it. After searching and exhausting all of our options my spirit was pretty low.
I decided to expand our search. When I did, I found a beautiful home that I fell in love with…well as much as I would allow myself. Once the arrangements were made to see the home, I placed a little barrier around my heart. After countless heartbreaks, I wanted to be distant (for future reference, this is not a good thing to do). 
Fortunately Heavenly Father knows how to soften my heart, even when I place steel barriers around it.
As we turned up the street to find the home, my eyes filled with tears and the barriers around my heart exploded. I was home….and I hadn’t even seen the house yet. I just knew. The fact that the house was beautiful was a complete bonus. After speaking with the owner, who is one of the nicest people I have ever met, we took all of the information and left to talk, think and pray. On paper, it wasn’t going to work. In my heart I just knew it had to.
I remember clearly the words my husband said as we were pulling out, “If this is our home, then I pray the Lord will elevate us to where we need to be to live here.” The miracles that followed were incredible. At that moment in time, there was not a chance that we would be able to live in that area, in that home. Yet, true to His word, the doors began to open and the path was made sure.
I think I assumed that the elevation we both desired would come immediately. We had been facing some pretty significant challenges, so I thought it was time to be lifted up. Heavenly Father had another plan in mind for us.
Elevation can only come when we reach the bottom.
I have learned over the past 6 months that elevation comes when we work continually to raise ourselves in the face of desperation, trial, fear, loneliness, uncertainty and pain. It is a choice and a blessing all wrapped up in one. In order for me to recognize this phenomenon in my life, I needed to see the lowest of lows. From that point, I had a choice to make….to look up or sit down.
The only way to climb is to look higher than where you are.
There have been many days when it took every ounce of strength in my heart and spirit to look up to Him. Prayer is work. There have been days when I have felt totally abandoned, only to have a moment of peace lift my chin. There have been days when I wanted to sit down and give up, because I was so tired of the climb, only to have an invisible hand reach down and pull me.
I see that the unknown paths that lie before me here are ones that I needed to find within my heart the strength that comes from climbing. I needed to learn to rely on my Savior in ways I had never even considered before.
This to me is elevation.
reblogged from own-who-you-are.com
Own Who You Are 