The Steadfast Heart

The people who know me best know if I could diagnose myself with an allergy, I would be deathly allergic to change. I am not the person running towards adventure; I am the person who can exhaust a list of reasons to stay right where I am. I’m slow to process change and oftentimes don’t know how to even get started sifting through the feelings of uncertainty I face.

I had been anxious for months sensing change was on the horizon for my family in 2024. No matter how persuasive my arguments and how extensive my lists of reasons got, I couldn’t outrun the pervasive sense that change would be inevitable. But as the New Year came, spiritual discipline started to temper my posture towards an unknown future. My Bible reading, which I’ve spent the past few years in intentional, daily practice has become even more rich with awe and wonder in the last few weeks. As I have been practicing faithfulness to time in his word, I have sensed his faithfulness in real and evident ways.

The first is a desire stronger than I have ever known to stay in step with the Holy Spirit. As a hurried person, I am learning that Jesus is unhurried. He’s been so kind to show me things I would’ve missed had I been setting my own pace. The second is through worship. Last year, Firm Foundation by Cody Carnes became like manna to me. I loved the song because my life felt nothing like the lyrics and I was desperate for what the words offered: joy in chaos. A peace that makes no sense. Steadfastness. What I didn’t know was that my striving was what was in the way of God’s goodness. As 2023 started to slow, a birthday gift from Hunter came just in time.

On Christmas Day, I turned 31. I also received an ancestry.com DNA kit, a perfect surprise from Hunter. Through the website that day, I found my grandmother’s high school yearbook, a picture of my grandfather in FFA, and the four World War II draft cards of my great-grandfathers. I never was able to meet any of them, but seeing their signatures inked in black cursive caught my breath. My dad’s mom, my Grandma Janie was adopted by her aunt and uncle: William and Marion Brewster. I knew Marion as Great-Grandma B until I was twelve. I also knew Great-Grandpa B was a descendant from the Mayflower.

With ancestry.com access, I was able to trace the details of the lineage back to my 9th great-grandfather: also named William Brewster. A passenger on the Mayflower. A mentor to William Bradford. The first elder in the first church established in Plymouth.

And it dawned on me, that from that family, my grandma would be born as Harriet; adopted by her aunt and uncle. Given a new name, Jane. She would marry a preacher with a shepherd’s heart, my grandfather, Gary Nelsen. Their firstborn son, my father, Jeff Nelsen, would have a calling on his life to lead and pastor people to life and hope in Jesus, too. Generations of God’s redemptive hand on my family. Generations given a purpose and a passion for Jesus. In every season, God, as a faithful Father provided for their needs.

And then I heard words in Firm Foundation I had never connected with this personal family history: “He’s faithful through generations. So why would he fail now? He won’t.”

He won’t. Blessed assurance.

If I let him, he’ll grow my spiritual muscles out of his strength. Just as he did for my father, and my father’s father and mother, and so on.

So as I anticipate the future with my family, as I walk in step with the Holy Spirit, praying he’ll help me be unhurried, I’m reminded and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for his faithfulness to my past and to my present. If he can lead my 9th great-grandfather from a ship, wrecked with illness and hardship, to lead the first known church in a new world, he can lead me to a life worth His calling. I don’t know what that is, but I know he’ll equip me. Because he’s faithful through generations.

Adventure with Jesus awaits. Thank you, Lord, that I can have faith in your future.

Take care & take heart,