Shelly Miller - Searching for Certainty: Finding God in the Disruptions of Life

Cover

Endorsements

Half Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword by Emily P. Freeman

1. Reframing Uncertainty

2. Where Is God?

3. Shhh! Be Still

4. Breaking Habits

5. Help Me Decide

6. Practice Presence

7. Winning or Whining?

8. Beholding Beauty for the Big Picture

9. Rest When Shadowed by Worry

10. Named and Known

11. Gratitude Brings Focus to the Blur of Uncertainty

12. Remembering Restores Certainty

Epilogue: Certainty Full Circle

Practice Creative Captures That Conjure Intimacy with Christ

Acknowledgments

Notes

About the Author

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Our hunger is the exiles hunger, but it is also the first step in our homecoming. We hunger, and in doing so learn the shape of our emptiness is the worlds great emptiness in or to prepare room for Gods presence. We imagine we are cultivating good or friendship or beauty. But we are, in all of these ways, cultivating Gods glory in our midst.

Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky

It flames from within,

unseen yet never dims

In wind, storm, or gale

it flickers with your exhale

So close, my Fathers breath,

so intimate, his warmth

To live is to breathe shining

M AKE A WISH ! Its what every child hears as they inhale before blowing out flaming candles on a birthday cake, marking another year. I wished my life were different almost every day of my childhood. A yellowing picture from a sparse collection of childhood photos hangs above my writing desk, a reminder that my life began clouded by uncertainty. In celebration of my third birthday, Im bent over a white frosted cake embellished with flaming candles, one pink, one blue, and one of an indiscernible color. The photo illustrates an ephemeral frame of my story, lived but not remembered, and often retold by relatives as the year Shelly didn t smile . My third year of stoic quietness accompanies a hunger strike coinciding with my parents decision to end their short union. Age and experience arent requirements for the soul to know something is awry, slanting the natural order of things. Searching for certainty is foundational to our DNA.

Of English descent, Dad and I share the thin bridge of our nose becoming a bright shade of pink when we stand in the sunny outdoors longer than fifteen minutes. Even with belts around our waists, we each maintain the habit of pulling up our pants due to small hips. His wavy brown hair and thin lips are my inheritance, but the twinkle in those marble blues when he smiles, well, those eyes set him apart as my grandfathers son. Being Daves daughter sounds magical when I hear other people say it out loud.