When You’re Afraid You’ll Never Reach Your Goals

I listened to the interview with the popular Christian writer, my mind reeling with questions. But the one that kept repeating itself over and over was, “How?”

This woman had a slew of kids running around, and she homeschooled all of them. Her writing was not shoddy. Each syllable sang with an effortless harmony as you read.

So how? How were there enough hours in the day? Did she have on a superwoman cape I couldn’t see as I listened to the podcast?

At the time I had two kids. Now I have three, the last one two months young. There are days I barely get the laundry done and the food made, much less worry about doing anything creative.

I see women on social media who, in all the bright lights and glow of the computer screen, are pursuing their goals and dreams. They are achieving milestones I dare to think about as I’m nursing my sweet babe at night.

Before daybreak, the fear takes over and says, “You’ll never get there.”

Comparison is such a lonely place to live.

Will you continue reading with me? Today I’m sharing over at PurposefulFaith.com. God met me in my place of discouragement, and I’d love to share what he showed me. You can read the rest of my post here.

When We Run Ahead of God {Anchored Souls Series}

Today my dear friend Tiffany Parry joins us on the blog as we continue our Anchored Souls series. Tiffany’s heart for real conversations drew me into her writing instantly. She leaves pretense at the door, and isn’t afraid to talk about the messy, often confusing parts of our walk with Christ. Her writing challenges me to dig deep and ask hard questions, and I am continually grateful God chose to align our paths in the writing world. I hope you will give her a warm welcome today as she talks about those seasons when God gives us a tough direction to follow.

When We Run Ahead of God

Just be a girl. God wrote the words over my heart.

After a season of struggle and difficulty, heartbreak and confusion, those words should have sounded like an invitation to freedom and rest. But for a “girl” who was used to doing, and going, and being so much more than “just” it felt like I was being placed on a shelf to collect dust.

God had called me out of ministry, out of labor and the business of caring for others. When my natural inclination might have been to search for a need to fill or a job to sink myself into, God said, just be.

It’s a humbling moment when the Creator of the universe gives you direction to simply stop.

I’ll be the first to admit that change isn’t easy. When, like me, you crave routine and detailed order, change feels a whole lot like the deep and wide unknown. But only to us.

“Jesus replied, ‘You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.’”
John 13:7 NLT

God sees, and He knows exactly when to cast light into the deep unknown and bring certainty out of the shadows.

So I waited…watched…listened…worshipped…communed…healed…stood still.

And then I was done. Yup. I decided my season of “just being” was over and it was time I leap right back into what I left behind. Notice all the “I’s” in that sentence?

Let’s pause for a minute. It bears mentioning that my season of wait encompassed over a year of my life. A year of change and adjustment, of new beginnings in new places. It was a necessary season of rest and refreshment in the Lord, and it wasn’t mind to end.

The changing of the seasons are never in our hands.

On a crisp fall evening, I donned brave and strong and marched [or more like crept into the corner] of a Women’s Ministry meeting at my new church. Certain that it was time to reignite my passions and reengage my gifts, I [there “I” am again] decided signing up for the smallest of small jobs would be harmless.

My pastor’s wife shared her vision for the women of the church—kindness, love, authenticity. She filled my heart in places I had no idea craved care and attention. At the end of the meeting I approached, lifted my hand to shake hers, and nearly slipped on my own puddle of tears as I poured out as much of my story as would fit around hiccups and sobs. Messy, but quite real.

Do you know what she said to me? “Just be a girl.”

Her words echoed God’s and assured me that it was simply too soon.

He was in the room that night. Even when we run ahead of God, He still stands by our side.

So I waited…watched…listened…worshipped…communed…healed some more and kept standing still.

And it was hard. But it was good. It still is. Rather than run ahead, I’ve taken baby steps and God has met each one. He has shined a great light into that deep unknown and has revealed certain truth, unwavering promise, abounding grace, and the most tender provision.

There have been moments I’ve wondered if perhaps God would forever leave me in a holding pattern. But just when I think I’m forgotten, God proves that He has been working all along—transforming, refining, equipping, molding me into the person He needs me to become.

We are His—dearly loved, held close, deeply treasured—and we are NEVER forgotten.

There are places we will soon walk that God has not yet revealed because He hasn’t fully prepared us for them. The stillness, the quiet, the seeming unknown are not indications of His absence, but simply the promise that His best is yet to come.

Let’s “just be” a people who willingly wait, who stand expectant, of God’s very best.

 

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Tiffany is marveled by the endless grace and relentless love of her Savior in this life that can be so messy, too busy, and entirely imperfect. Her heart is to share God’s precious promises of grace and love with others and invite them into honest and authentic conversations about faith and life. Tiffany welcomes you to join the journey at her blog, Simply for One, or on Facebook and Instagram.

3 Truths to Remember When God Asks You to Wait

I wish I was a morning person. In hundreds of little ways, it would make life easier. But until I’ve had my first or sometimes third cup of coffee, my words during those early hours are few.

There is one thing other than school schedules and kids’ activities that will get me out of bed before the sun, though. Even on a vacation when my boys are still sleeping, I will roll out of the covers, tip toe across the floor and slip on my flip-flops. It’s a sunrise. More specifically, a sunrise over the ocean. My love for photography and nature makes me ignore the tug of the warm mattress, yawning all the way to the boardwalk.

Last year in early summer, I knew we only had a couple of days left on our beach trip. I snuck outside in the wee hours, toting my Nikon and wide-angle lens with me. As soon as my feet hit the sand, the humid air hit me like a wet cloak and gnats greeted my face. The comfy bed beckoned me back.

I walked down the shoreline and realized it was already noticeably bright out. Had I missed the sun?

Will you continue reading with me? Today I’m sharing 3 truths I hold onto when God asks me to wait. You can find me over at iBelieve. Click here to read the rest of my post.

Linking up with these communities: #RaRaLinkup, #IntentionalTuesday

When You Feel Stuck in Limbo

I wanted to fast forward through the season.

Christmas was over, and winter settled in whether we were ready for it or not. The only reminder of life was an occasional bird who hadn’t migrated south.

My husband and father-in-law had just driven cross-country on a sheet of ice in record-breaking temperatures. Chris said it was the only time the inside of his nose literally froze when he stepped outside to fill up the tank with gas.

We were in state of limbo for months, living with my in-laws while waiting for our previous home to rent. In eager expectation for this next phase of our lives, we looked for houses near my husband’s new job.

But every time our hopes would rise as we anticipated good news, we’d hear, “Not yet. Not this time. Keep waiting.”

I didn’t know what God was trying to teach me in all of this. We were stuck. I hesitated to make friends, knowing we’d be moving over an hour away.

When we visited new churches, we left immediately after service, not trying to connect with anyone or build community. The snow on the ground was a reflection of my spiritual life- it felt dead, and I didn’t know what to do to revive it.

I held on to relationships with friends thousands of miles away like a lifeline. I wondered if we’d made a mistake, if we’d heard God wrong when we decided to make such a life-altering decision.

One of the biggest lies the enemy of our souls tells us is that God can’t use our current season for good.

Because after all, how can all this pain and heartache bring beautiful? How can months spent waiting on God to act and move not be wasted?

Often, instead of growing in our faith and pressing into our Savior, we become stuck. We refuse to seek God through the season of discouragement and are bitter.

If you are in a season of limbo, here are four things I encourage you to do:

1. Pray. Ask God what he’s trying to teach you in all of this. Often, God uses interruptions to refocus our attention on him and areas of our lives we’ve been neglecting.
2. Redirect. If God revealed an area you’ve been neglecting during your time in step one, spend this time focusing more attention on this part of you life.
3. Reflect. Remember seasons like this one from your past and how God faithfully brought you through them.
4. Surrender. No matter how much we try to control our situation, there is really only one person who is ultimately in control. And he’s not of this world.

When Easter came I was reminded how much Jesus gave up as he hung there on the cross, being ridiculed by the same people who waited hundreds of years for a Messiah. I knew what God was asking me to do, but I hesitated.

I wanted control, but deep down I knew I never had it.

We will continually live our lives stuck until we surrender our plans to the One who can move mountains. I had to turn over the reigns to Him.

In early summer of 2011, we moved into our home. It wasn’t the first place we picked or a move-in ready choice. It required love, care and paint.

But it was perfect for our family. And it was well worth the wait.

 

*Linking up with Suzie Eller’s #LiveFreeThursday

Why Waiting Is Just as Important as the Finished Art

I put off downloading my iPhone’s new software for over a year. I can be stubborn like that sometimes.

Yesterday, when I finally bit the bullet and downloaded the newest version, I found that my phone was even faster at accessing apps and uploading pictures than it was before. I take a photo and instantly it is on the wide world of social media.

When my phone doesn’t perform properly, I get antsy and irritable. It’s amazing how dependent I’ve become on this little device that I didn’t even have four years ago.

Oh, patience. Such a seldom sought after virtue in today’s world.

Three weeks ago, I received a not-so-subtle reminder how important waiting is. Even when we don’t want it. Even when we complain and whine and push our way through the line because we simply can’t stand still another moment.

I sat in a room filled with over eight hundred women and listened to Christine Caine of Hillsong Church talk about the dark room. You know, the place where they used to take photos to be developed? With the right chemicals and the right amount of time in the dark room, a beautiful image appeared.

If the image was taken out of the dark room too soon, the picture was destroyed.

As I listened to this woman of God drive her point home, I felt like she was speaking directly at me. I knew I needed more time in the dark room, but somehow I hoped I was wrong.

“I love being in a room of women who are filled with vision.” Everyone clapped and smiled. “But until the Light within you is greater than the spotlight on you, the spotlight on you will destroy you.”

The image of Christ needs time to be forged on each of us. Time in the dark room. Time spent with Him, sometimes in the midst of trials. Time waiting. Time praying for him to move and act with faith that He will, at just the right moment.

Two weeks after the conference, my sneaking suspicion that my time in the dark room wasn’t over arrived in my inbox. A rejection letter from the one publisher who’d taken my proposal back to the house to read. I knew how seldom it was that a first-time proposal was accepted, but it still stung.

It felt like the death of something I’d carried inside of me for months, hopeful and anxious and excited all at the same time. But after a few days in prayer and the company of a beautiful community of friends, I realized something.

I read the email again. It wasn’t a “no.” I just needed that final piece to the puzzle.

Sometimes what feels like a “no” is actually God saying, “Not yet.”

When we see that dream in front of us, we feel as though if we don’t seize it immediately we will crush beneath the weight of broken expectations and a sense of failure. But that final piece of the puzzle is just one piece.

Getting there, and the journey along the way, is just as important. That is where the growing takes place. That is where the faith builds.

That is where God forges his image on his creation, irreplaceable by anything that is in the world.

 

*photo source 1

*photo source 2