Sometimes the quiet feels like a graveyard. Until I hear the howl of the wind whipping the leftover leaves up into the air as the seed from the feeders is scattered. We can't see the wind. We don't even know the direction it blows until we step outside and feel it blasting into our face. Sometimes that's how the quiet feels to me. I feel like I can't catch my breath. There is nothing to hear, but I feel everything. My mind wanders as if I'm Alice stuck in a place I simply can't figure out.
I'm trying to understand what it is I'm chasing. Is it my dream to publish the book I'm working on? Is it something more? I feel stuck in the wind and trying to cross the street with a hand full of papers and just as I think I'm about to make it across the wind picks up and scatters everything in my hands.
My emotions are all over the place. In everything all I want to do is breathe. I just want to soak in every moment, but in that same mind frame I'm fearful of that moment when everything changes and I long for the quiet. There are times when life seems perfect. I have such a blessed life, but in the mix of things I know there are things missing.
See, I'm that girl who wants to share Jesus with everyone. I know He has more for me. He wants me to be content in the quiet, but yet when the wind is billowing at a speed in which I cannot keep up He too wants me to feel His peace.
I have built up walls around me. Walls to keep out the hurt and anger. I have such wounds that have cut deep and it has made me fearful of attending a new church. I don't want to be hurt again, but in that same breath I know that if I don't give room for the hurt there cannot be room for love. I must love without the fear of being hurt. I'm learning to tear down the walls. Today I spent time alone, music playing, me on my knees on our living room rug with hands held high with tears streaming. I let it all go. All those church hurts and the anger of church family who has simply left me standing alone. I prayed for each of those life long friends I thought would grow gray with me that I miss so dearly. Why is it that people wound? We are such selfish beings, always thinking of ourselves at the moment. We hurt others without intention, but knowing we have hurt we simply do nothing. There is no, "I'm sorry", to comfort those wounds.
I am blessed with the most amazing husband that encourages me through every step. He listens to my dreams and as they grow bigger I feel energized and inspired. But there is Satan. Always Satan to tell us it's not going to happen. He brings up every hurt and stabs the heart once again. There are times I cry simply for my big dreams. I know they haven't come from me, but from my Jesus. I know my calling. I know I am to reach out to women and share my story which belongs to Jesus, for He is the One who has brought me through everything. But there is that fear. It's like each dream is wrapped in fear and as I begin to unwrap there is more paper and more paper and I never get to open the dream.
I long to be surrounded by others. I am a people kind of girl. I love conversation and the more it encompasses my Jesus the more I love it. I love to study. I would love to have a study in my community. I just want to be around Christian women who want to serve big and live out our calling in a huge way. But in my smallness I wonder if I can. I wonder when and if others will join me. I just want to breathe in the beauty of the dream and expose the reality that Jesus is in everything.
I want to move when He moves in me. I want to live in such a way that every aspect of my life points to Him. I want to let all the junk go and tell Satan to take a hike. But see, I like to depend on others. I like to depend on others to help me in this journey. Can I be brutally honest? I feel so let down. Jesus is teaching me a lesson I seem to keep stumbling over. People are not perfect and they will let me down time and time again, but He will NEVER leave me or forsake me.
I have the words. I have the heart. I have the compassion. I just need to know where it is I am suppose to go. Where is this calling taking me? I listen and I don't hear where I am suppose to be. It's confusing. I feel a mess, but if there is anyone who can put me together and make me complete it is my Jesus.
So, what do I do in all this searching and chasing? I simply stop chasing and allow my heart to catch up with my Jesus. I become still and absorb the quiet. I learn to accept what I cannot understand. I give God room to heal the brokenness within me. I simply say, "Yes, Lord".
I can't be everything people need me to be. I'm going to make mistakes. Just as I cannot look for others to satisfy me, I have to be okay when I can't be everything for others. I don't want to hide within these walls. I want to experience life to the fullest, but the only way I can do that is to let go and learn to breathe.
What I'm understanding is that in this quiet that surrounds me Jesus is alive and waiting. He's waiting for me to stop looking for confetti to fall from the sky to create a perfect life around me and totally depend upon Him. He is waiting for me to receive ALL He has for me. I don't have to have all the answers. All I must do is simply trust Him. I must open my hands and give Him everything that I continue to hold tightly to. Unless He has all of me He can't move in me as He desires.
The bottom line is that I can always run to God. He wants to be my every breath. The more I breathe in of Him the more of Him I'm going to breathe out. In this compound of surrounded walls that I have created He is helping me to see how each brick became to pile upon another and another until the silence filled not only the space around me, but my inner being. I can tell you with every fiber of my being that those walls are crumbling down even I as type the words. He is refining me as I let go and let God.
I am not lacking anything. He has already given me every single gift He created just for me. He wants to use me for His glory. The winds may blow from all directions. The silence may seem like it will strangle me. But in the broad spectrum of this life of mine God knows which direction He wants me to travel and He will me peace to accept the quiet as a time I can spend with Him. I'm finding pleasure in the quiet.
How about you, friend? What is it that your chasing? Has something stumped you? Do you feel that there is more and you just don't know which direction to move? Stop running. Stop spinning in circles and simply be. Allow God to quiet all that is screaming in your heart. Write your dreams down and seek Him as to how He is going to make them happen, but until you hear from Him simply be in the life you are living each moment. Move in a new way that brings others to see something different in you. A girl perhaps with a new perspective that only wants to share Jesus through everything she does. Give Him time. He is the One with perfect timing. Until then simply breathe Him in.
"But those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31
"The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life." Job 33:4
