Introspection is important. I have been thinking lately …a lot! I read that the average person has 40,000 thought a day. I do not doubt that because at times I feel like so many thoughts are going through my mind they are all colliding with one another. I have gathered advise, contemplated, prayed, and spent many hours debating what the Lord would have me do with the things he is teaching me. Do I feel like I will write a book? Yes, I do. I think I will be writing 2 books. My current plan is they will go hand in hand. I have no idea what the Lord will do with it, but my heart says, “Lord I am willing”. I told him over a year ago that if Millie’s story and his goodness could not be shared with her own lips, I would still share it with mine. Even though it ended in a way I did not desire, GOD IS STILL GOD! He is still GOOD! He is still in control.
As I have been thinking and planning, I have been doing lots of writing on real paper! That is a novel idea! I have been carrying a journal everywhere I go and jotting quotes down. I have been texting myself important things that I am learning. I am reading books and heavily writing in the margins. Using my highlighter to bring attention to every important thing that stands out. I feel like my mind has been going at a frantic pace, needing to get this stuff down before I lose the inspiration. It finally made sense after I listened to a podcast featuring Dawn Barton, author of “Laughing Through the Ugly Cry” where she said something along the lines of ‘you will never be closer to God then when you are in the depths of despair. When we are at our pinnacle of the mountain, life is good, and we are distracted from our time with our Lord. However, when life hits rock bottom and there is no where else to turn to, we cry out to GOD’. It is at that moment that our dependance becomes very real. We seek his face, his favor, and his audience. We cling to the hope only he can give. Should we be there every day? Absolutely! But reality is despair draws us back into his fold.
Today, that is where I stand. I am not in the pit of depression, but my heart is bruised and sensitive. My Lord has heard me cry out many times in the last 17 months, begging him first for Millie’s healing, then for her pain relief, and now for direction. This is the time to make sure my listening ears and searching heart knows exactly what direction God would move me. I cannot run from the silence so hard that I fill my life up with all the noise of the world, leaving God’s still small voice behind. I need to have a soft and sensitive heart, seeking HIS will. This is true of all of us, but what are the steps to achieving this?
First, I wrote out all the things in my life that are a priority in brainstorming bubbles. Some I felt successful in and others I felt like a complete failure; however, I feel called to do something in each of the bubbles. One of my priority bubbles was “personal care”. This circle included all the things that I do (or need to do) to take care of ME. As a wife and momma, having time to do for myself is hard to come by. I am not a big proponent of ‘me time’. I believe my job is first to love and serve my husband, then to love and train my children. If I fail at that job, I have failed at the first calling God gave to me. I know though that I can not take care of them if I am personally falling apart. I must do the basics for myself to be any use of them. Some of these basics are reading my bible, eating nutritious foods, exercise (hate it!), plenty of sleep, and a recharge of reading books for pleasure. I know I am called to care for myself so that I can care for others.
Mark 8:36 “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Another bubble is to teach the children through homeschooling. I believe it is a calling and no, not everyone is called to it. It can be frustrating, exhausting, and rewarding all in the same moment. There are moments I seriously consider quitting for my sanity, but then there are more moments where the tender sweet spirits as they learn something solely because I AM WILLING to teach them reels me back in to where God has placed my calling. He ALLOWS me to be their mom and their teacher. I firmly believe the scripture that “Children are a blessing and a gift from the Lord.” Psalm 127:3
A third bubble included ministry and how God would use me to testify of his goodness. Would it be through the book? This prayer page? A small group of women? Or even just an individual that I reach out to? You see we can minister just where we are in our own daily lives. Someone you meet today NEEDS Jesus. Someone needs to hear kindness and feel compassion given to them. We live in such a hurting world. People are walking wounded. We may not see the hurts, many times they are buried under a hardened shell of protection, but we all have hurts.
Ephesians 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
If you were to take the time to write down what your priorities were, what would it look like?
Would they be what YOU hoped to achieve or what you hoped GOD would achieve through you? Would you be serving others? Would people see your heart in your actions? Are you willing to live your life filtered through the lens of CHRIST JESUS? Many will not be… May God find me willing and faithful.
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