There's another place on the interwebs where I write thoughts, share my heart, and lift my eyes and words to my Creator. While technically public, it's a very private space that though I've mentioned before doesn't get shared openly on a regular basis, more like once months and months ago in a moment of sheer uncharacteristic bravery.
To put yourself out there, laid bare, in front of the world (or in truth a minute group of friendly readers made up of friends and family and the occasional Googler) is a daunting, beautiful, but daunting, necessary, but daunting, encouraging, but daunting thing. To share my deepest struggles and my most beloved learned (the hard way) lessons is both my wildest dream yet my biggest fear. The first fear being what makes me think I have anything to offer when many have suffered grief much larger and more often than mine, with many other fears following, but that's a different post for another time.
I know somewhere in the distant, or maybe not so distant future, God is calling me to walk alongside and encourage others in their own difficult journeys. To show them where the only true Hope comes from and how to see it no matter the struggle and no matter how many times giving up seems like the better answer. No matter how many times you fail, repent, and start again. And I'm quite experienced at the fail, repent, repeat part.
I have no clue in what venue this will take place. If it will be a paid profession or just a constant part of my life no matter what I'm actually paid to do. All I know is that I feel a calling on my heart to give away what I've been given and that this last remaining year of my current stay at home mommy job will include preparing for this somewhat clear but quite fuzzy future.
This desire has only intensified in my heart and mind these last few weeks as friends and family are on their knees in prayer seeking comfort in their questioning. My heart longs to speak into the doubt, to remind that He draws us closer to Him often using times of uncertainty and times of downright difficult so that we know from where our help comes from. So that we clearly see the only boasting we can do is for Him remembering that even our best is filthy rags and its not by our might or power but by His Spirit that things are done. And if I'm honest, I need to preach these words to myself just as much, if not more.
Recently I shared about mentally following worst case scenario roads to the end because without fail you'll always find your Heavenly Father there because He never fails even if things on earth do. This is a much needed exercise for all of us, in all worst case fears, so that we are reminded that the things on earth are temporary but He is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18).
However, just because in my imagination I let my biggest fears play out, the tangible, life living circumstances have not yet reached those same conclusions. Maybe they will, and if they do I will cling to the Hope of my Father not only waiting for me at the end but walking me through it all. But more than likely, life will not live out the way I can conjure up in my mind. What I have imagined, is not what will be. Our intellect and creativity, however extraordinary, fine tuned, and exercised, can never compare to the vastness of the One who created it all from nothing with nothing but His words.
On the other side it also does not give me the excuse to sit idly and wait as if I am unuseful, untalented lump or give me an excuse to kick back to my often practiced ostrich skills of sticking my head in the sand and waiting until all the hard stuff blows over. What it means is I pray that I'm following the will of the Lord and while I wait, I work, trusting that it will not be in vain.
Just this evening in the car as I finished up my kindred spirit's* (though we've never met and she has no clue who I am) most recent book, it spoke directly to this feeling by saying biblical rest is "to be able to sit down on the inside even as my hands are fast at work".
Following that mental road to the end and then living the true reality in fullness is about one thing, gaining the peace that comes from abiding in Christ. Then it allows you to work with no fear of the future, but only joy that you are being used in small ways for a bigger story.
Good news indeed to this weary, fearful, doubtful soul. Praying, repenting and trying again, again.
*Simply Tuesday by Emily P. Freeman
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