Being Still

My heart is heavy.  My body is weary.  My mind is exhausted.  I am, simply put, empty.  I am sitting in my living room on my couch, my house is dark because my family is sleeping.  However, no matter what I do I just lie there staring at the ceiling with an ache in my heart.  A loneliness that no one can fill.  As I was lying there silently crying I was praying.  To be honest I don't even know why my heart is so heavy, why I feel so lonely tonight.  Do you ever feel like that sometimes? Like you could be in a room full of people and no one gets you?  That's how I am feeling tonight.  That's what is keeping me awake when my body longs to be sleeping.  So on my couch I began praying and crying out to God... "what is wrong with me here? Why am I feeling this way?"  God ever so sweetly reminded me of His Word in Matthew 6:33 "Are you seeking ME first?"  Therein lies my answer.  I have been so busy trying to keep all my plates spinning and not let them come crashing down around me that I forgot the most basic of principles of walking with the Lord... I must seek HIM first, seek HIS righteousness, then He will direct my path.  There is something so freeing about trusting in God.  Trusting Him with ALL the details of my hearts desires, of my dreams, of my fears.  I stopped myself (mid sob) and spoke out loud... "Okay God, I really really can't do this."  God also reminded me that He knows my limits, He knows my needs better than I know them, and even more than that... He wants to fulfill my needs! I can stop trying to swim upstream fighting the current.  I can grab the life preserver and rest my weary body, soul, and mind.  I think about the feeling I used to get as a kid, you know the feeling when you have been in the pool swimming your heart out for what feels like forever, then suddenly you find a pool float and grab on.  That first moment when you realize you can stop kicking your feet and treading water, you can rest.  This what I am feeling tonight, rest.  This song just came to mind and I think it speaks directly to the intimacy of resting in the Lord...

I wanna sit at Your feet

Drink from the cup in Your hands

Lay back against You and breathe

And feel Your heartbeat

This love is so deep, it's more than I can stand

I melt in Your peace, it's overwhelming. 

Thank You Father for rest and peace in a world of chaos and loneliness.  Thank You for knowing me so intimately that You long to fulfill my needs even before I can acknowledge them.  Tonight I choose to seek You first, I receive Your rest, I will be still. 

Lessons learned

Wow, it certainly has been a long time since I have written.  That is not for the most obvious reason as it may seem, that I have nothing to say, in fact it is the exact opposite, I have too much to say and I cannot seem to organize my thoughts into a coherent form.  So consider that your disclaimer, this entry could be all over the place!  These past few months God has been doing some serious work in my life! Some of the lessons have been incredibly hard (with some amazing applications!) and some have been such sweet and tender moments that I feel as though I could burst into tears as I type this! (Just for your information I actually do have tears in my eyes!) God is so good, He is so completely fulfilling and satisfying, His kindness, gentleness, and love fills me so completely that I feel as though I am bursting at the seams! Some months ago Travis and I began praying about what we needed to do to make our finances work, his hours had just been cut back at work (at a job that he really felt no sense of pride or loyalty in), I am about to graduate from my Master’s program and student loans are going to be rolling in, and we really feel as though we would like to try for another baby sometime this year. I began praying that God would do a work in my heart about the anxiety and fear I was feeling about our financial future.  For those of you who know me well know that I am a rather controlling person.  I have, on more than one occasion, been known to take the wheel even when God was in the driver’s seat.  However, in this circumstance, no matter how many times I ran the numbers, no matter how much I tried to cut corners and budget, the numbers were not in our favor.  This is when God stepped in and ever so gently lifted my head and wiped my weary and tear filled eyes and asked me a question, “Don’t you think I’m bigger than your financial difficulties?” WOW, that is all I can say to that, how small must I really believe that God is to think that He cannot handle my finances? Friends, my perspective on the Lord really needed an overhaul.  And an overhaul I have received.  I began praying that God would remind me in all circumstances to TRUST HIM.  This is so much easier said than done, every single situation in my life began spiraling out of my control, some for the worse and others for the better, but either way I could not control them.  This normally would have put me in a tailspin and I would have immediately slammed on the brakes to figure things out for myself.  But God continued asking me “Don’t you think I am bigger than…”  Fill in those blanks for yourself, but for me those blanks looked something like this… “Don’t you think I am bigger than your school work?” “Don’t you think I am bigger than your frustrations with Travis?” “Don’t you think I am bigger than your busyness?” “Don’t you think I am bigger than rekindling communication with your father?” “Don’t you think I am bigger than Lynnlee teething?” “Don’t you think I am bigger than your sins and struggles with obedience?” and the list could literally go on for pages! The answer to all of these questions is of course YES, but am I living my life that way?  If I was going to be honest with myself and the Lord, (and let’s face it, He already knows the truth, He knows our hearts and our thoughts for goodness sake!) I was not living my life out of this belief.  I began praying “God make me willing to be under Your authority and control, make me willing to submit to You” and let me try to explain the results of that prayer, it was like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders, it was like shackles and chains falling down to the ground where I was standing.  Those shackles and chains that had held me captive, frozen in fear and anxiety about the uncontrollable began to be loosed, I was FREE! Dara Maclean sings a song called “You made me free”, here are some of the lyrics: You tell me, I’ve been made free, You give me everything I need to walk in my dreams, You whisper words that free my soul, You’re the reason I have hope, You’re everything I need and more, You made me, You made me free. That was exactly what God wanted for me, freedom!  That’s what He wants for all of us, freedom to trust in Him, freedom to experience His salvation that is full of mercy and grace, freedom to dream for the impossible! Thank you Lord for FREEDOM!!!!!!