I was holding baby Georgia in my arms last Monday night giving her her bedtime bottle. It’s the only time you can have her completely still in your arms anymore. Since she began to walk the child is like a machine! But I was rocking her and she was almost asleep when I had to sneeze. I couldn’t hold it in and when I let it out as daintily southern as possible, her eyes popped open. Well, that tickled the tar out of me, so my stomach started shaking, which shook her and then her face broke out in this big smile while her bottle was clinched between her teeth.

When she finally began to doze back off I just stared into that little face and began to pray for her. Now, I’m not her mama, but I am her Aunt Niecy and there was this intense desire in me that she never know a moment of pain. I just began to ask the Lord to protect her from ever knowing a moment of pain. That her heart would never be broken. That she’d never miss His plan or His path. That her husband would cherish her, whenever her daddy actually lets her date.

I knew I was praying out of my own broken place. God has been reaching into my guts lately, taking me to a new place of faith and its scary and real and uncertain and taking all of what I know to press in and press through. And I didn’t want her to ever have to cry a tear that was because of heartbreak or hurt. Yet even as I was praying it over her, I knew that that was where faith grew. Faith only grows in the using of it. It only grows in having to trust when there is lack. It only grows in having to believe when you’re face to face with impossibility. It only grows when all the circumstances of life beg you to give up and God is screaming at you to hold on. It only grows when you step out of the boat into the middle of the hurricane knowing that he is on the other side.

Faith only grows when it is tested, tried, challenged and pressed. And that hurts. But the journey is worth it, because the view of God in the place of faith is one of the most breathtaking views there is.

I thought as I stared at the beautiful, little olive face, with its sweeping eyelashes and perfect little nose how much God’s heart must ache to have to grow our faith. Yet in knowing it might be painful, He, like a faithful surgeon, knows it is necessary, vital even for survival.

He asked His disciples, “When I come back will I find faith on the earth?” For Him to ask that question, for faith to be the one thing He is looking for when He returns, then my word faith must be essential. I don’t like growing it, I’ll be honest. I’d rather…well, there are a thousand things I’d rather, but it’s in my best interest not to put them on the printed page. But I trust Him. And I don’t want to miss Him out there in the middle of the waves by being hunkered down in the belly of the boat. I want to be walking out on the water in the middle of the hurricane if it means getting to see Him closer, more clearly. I want all of Him. I’m scared to death of what that means, but I’m more scared of missing Him.

Georgia will have times of pain through this life and we’ll cry with her. But we will remind her, “baby girl, Jesus is growing your faith. And I know it hurts in the deepest places right now, but He is equipping you for every good work that He has called You too. And you don’t want to miss where He’s called you.”

We don’t either my friend…we don’t either.