Forgetting and Remembering.

I've been here before.

I am waking up in a spiritual groundhog day type scenario because I have forgotten.

You see there is a lesson, or a practice rather, that I have been taught more than once and yet I have forgotten.

Like the Israelites did with 12 stones, I too, have set reminders in my path to remember and yet I have forgotten. The children God gave me, their middle names were given to remind me of God's faithfulness in my life.

Yet, once again, I have forgotten.

Our family is in a season of seeking and waiting and I wish I could write that I am cool and it's NBD.

I may be impatient but I'm not a liar. :)

I've started three paragraphs so far of what to say next and have deleted each one because quite frankly, I am bummed that I haven't mastered a skill just yet. I go back and forth on who this blog is really for? Is it you the reader or really just me trying to learn my own lessons?

This week, I have found myself anxious, foggy and scattered.

Remember before cable? You remember the snowy channels in between networks?  That's what I feel when I can't see the clear picture of what God has in store.

In our house, we watch a little Disney. Okay, full disclosure, we watch A LOT of Disney.  This afternoon during one of our "let's sing all the Disney songs we know" episodes, one scene from Aladdin kept replaying in my mind.

You know it. It's the one where Aladdin is pretending to be Prince Ali and wants to get Jasmine to join him on an adventure on the magic carpet.  She asks if it's safe. He holds out his hand and says, "Do you trust me?" It catches Jasmine's attention because it's not the first time she's heard THOSE words from HIS voice.

She asks "Prince Ali" to repeat himself and he says it again and this time she's sure because she remembers that when she heard it before, she was safe.   

Just today, I told someone that when I am not in control of what is going on, I don't feel safe. 

This afternoon it was like the Prince of Peace was inviting me on an adventure and once again asking, "Do you trust me?"

Then I remembered.

I remembered that He has always been present.
I remembered that closed doors and unmet expectations were not silence but grace.
I remembered that every time He asks me to trust Him, He gives me a reason to believe Him for the next one. 

I remembered to just sit, remain and abide.

In John 15, Jesus tells us that He is the vine and we are the branches. We're reminded we can do nothing without him so we're told to sit, remain and abide. But have you ever caught verse 4? Jesus says that every branch that bears fruit will be pruned. That sounds painful and uncomfortable and if we're honest it is, right?

You know what pruning does to plants though? It allows them to grow. 

So here I am, feeling the pruning again because Jesus knows I need to grow.

<3

What Is It?

This last year of my life has felt so different.  You see, in my past God has used very clear, grand gestures or occurrences to speak to me. Maybe it's because I’d be blind or deaf to it otherwise. Yeah, I am pretty sure that’s why. 

My history with God has played out a certain way. It started when I was in my time of wandering. In the depths of my disobedience, God spoke to me through the clearest dream, I’d ever had.  When God called me into ministry- it was the first time I felt that Jeremiah fire. I didn’t even know what kind of ministry, just that if I did not get out of my seat at CIY for that call, I would burst.  I had that same fire feeling when the Lord told me to go into Children’s Ministry. Then after our season of waiting for kids, God moved heaven and earth to align for Emily to come into our lives. The details of that story are, to this day, the most ordained thing I have ever walked through.  The surprise of Ezra and then the way the Lord called us here to Savannah, all of it so clearly the hand of the Creator.

But y’all in the last year that has paused and I have missed it dearly.  Up until now, I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. You see, I haven’t felt that God was distant or not moving on my behalf. 

No, that’s not it. 

I haven’t felt that obvious and holy burn and my ability to voice what God is doing in my heart has felt locked up, like all my words are gone. At times I have even felt confused and questioning, “Am I still hearing?” 

It’s just different. I feel like I am in a season of Manna. I don’t necessarily mean provision even though the Lord is doing that each day, of course. No, I mean the literal meaning of manna, which is, “what is it?”. 

What is it that the Lord is asking of me?

What is it that I need to learn?

What is it that the Lord wants to do through me?

What is it, the reason He so clearly called my family here?

Please don’t read this as a negative because I am not sure it is. Sure, I love the simplicity of obeying when things are obvious. I loved the way that relationship worked. God would speak and I would obey.  It’s harder for me to be disobedient in the obvious. 

I am not a resolution person and I don’t usually pick a word for the year. No reason really but I just don’t. This year though, I felt like I needed to.  It was January and I hadn’t thought about it at all. I have friends that search and pray for days for their word.  That is not how mine came. I opened up my Bible app and the verse of the day was, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart”.

There it was, my word.  Seek.   I thought then that the word was given so that I would seek His hand in my marriage, seek His hand in my parenting, my ministry and in the unknowns or harder places of my life. But I realize today that, the word and the verse were given but not really for those reasons. I thought the goal was just to see the hand of God in each part of my life but here as I sit and type in a parking lot, it’s more than that.  It's not just evidence of His work. No, it's clear to me that it's HIM that I need to seek without agenda. 

I don’t believe this season will be one of burning bushes or pillars by day and night.  No, this season won’t be the Jeremiah 20:9 season where it feels like obvious fire I can't ignore. No, this is my 9 chapters later Jeremiah.  This is my 29:13 seeking and finding with all of my heart season. 

Today, I was in Downtown Savannah and there was a parade happening in honor of Dr. King.  I don’t know my way around this new place super well and I was trying to get home and I kept getting blocked by one -way streets and baracades because of a parade. I didn’t mind though because I was listening to Annie's Remember God book so I wasn’t in a hurry. I just drove around the squares and one ways just searching for the road that would take me to where I needed to go.  At each intersection, I paused and looked to right and then to the left to see if that’s where things were moving.  The parade was in full swing and celebration could easily be heard but it grew quieter as I moved further away.  There were fewer cars and pedestrians and everyone going this way was doing the same thing, searching for the way home. 

Then the flow of traffic stopped. I looked ahead to see that police were getting ready to open the street, open the road. But before they did, a street sweeper came through to clear the road of what had just transpired. It hit me metaphorically, almost instantly.  

Sometimes we seek God so He can "sweep" some things out.  He could tell us but maybe sometimes, He wants us to hunt because it’s in the hunting or the seeking that we find Him. 

This season is about digging in, doubling down and doing the work to see literally, what it is that God would have me do in this season of my life.

This is the season where I have to pray more and try to control less.
This is the season where I listen more and hopefully, say less.
This is the season where I Isaiah 30:21. "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way; walk in it". 

So here I am, seeking and trusting that I will find God in new ways with a whole heart.