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Sit. Still. Settle.

Do you ever hear yourself saying something that one of your parents would have said to you? There’s often a mixture of horror that you are turning into one of your parents and a realisation of why it was that they said it in the first place.

I was sat with Sully on the stairs, actually i was sat on the stairs semi hiding from the children who were watching trying to read some more of my book, but i digress. Sully came and climbed onto my lap. He snuggled in for a cuddle and then shifted position and snuggled differently, then he knelt up and tried another position, bumped his head, got frustrated and then tried another position. To say that it was irritating would be an understatement.

I found myself exclaiming “if you are having a cuddle would you just sit still and settle”. He settled into the original position he had been in, snuggled in and had a good long cuddle.

As we sat cuddling I felt one fo those God nudges that said “That’s what I’m trying to say to you” and so I stopped and I thought for a few moments about what I had said:

“Sit still and settle”

Sit. Still. Settle.

For a number of months I have been avoiding just stopping and sitting with God. I occasionally set out to spend time with Him but I fidget, get distracted, DO something instead of just BEING with Him but I don’t just sit with Him and rest in His arms.

The thing is that it’s really hard to just sit with God at the best of times. It’s an even harder thing to do when life is tough, when your heart is broken, when you’re filled with grief and when you don’t understand the segments of your life.

Pain makes stopping and sitting with God so hard. It means coming face to face with the fact that the realitiies of your life don’t match up with the goodness of God. It draws your heart to the fact that you don’t feel that goodness and it doesn’t feel like God is in your reality. That’s a painful place to sit.

What’s even more ridiculous is that I know if I were to make the effort to BE with God I would find that those two conflicting states would become less conflicting. God’s peace would become a reality and that pain would be experienced in the presence of a loving God not on my own.

So God wants me to just sit and stop fidgeting… not an easy call but if it’s something God is calling me to, it’s probably for a good reason.

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Listening to His whispers

Are you any good at listening to God? More importantly are you any good at listening to Him and DOING something about what you’ve heard?

I’ve had a number of things niggling me for quite some time about what I do next in life. I am a stay at home mum and I don’t intend to change that. In fact I mostly enjoy it and I try to remind myself that work was monotonous too and that’s not just a home thing!

However I have felt God pushing me to take steps in areas of blogging, creating and possible photography.

I was thinking about dreaming the other week when I was looking at writing down my rule of life for small group. My personality and my giftings lend themselves to being a helper. To getting along side someone who comes up with plans and dreams and then helping them to get it done whether that’s with ideas or just doing as they ask me. I realised as I was thinking about this that the problem with being a helper is that when you try and dream for yourself it’s very hard to do. Firstly because it is hard to believe that your dreams might somehow work and not fear that the promptings you hear from God are just your own thoughts. Secondly it’s incredbily hard work out what steps to actually take to actually make progress and who to bring along with you in that dream you’re not sure will work in the first place!

So with these promptings I’ve spent a lot of time putting myself down.

  • I’m not good enough.
  • I don’t have time.
  • No one would want me to take photos.
  • No one would buy something I create.
  • No one would read the blog post.

But the thoughts keep coming back and somewhere in there I am starting to think more and more that it’s a God nudge.

However I keep coming back to that same problem: I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START WITH ANYTHING EVEN IF I WANT TO!!

Since Friday, what I am finding as I try to open myself more up to God’s prompting and strengthening for weight loss, He also seems to be talking to me more about the other things in life and how to move forwards.

I talked with a friend as we went for a walk who reminded me that although I was comparing my abilities with people around me, God has created me as an individual. I am me and no one else is. A good wet fish round the face to remind me stop comparing myself so much and so harshly.

I listened to on Friday as I was running which talked about the reaction of “I can’t” and how this guys Dad had always responded to him “I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me”. He started the talk asking people to think of what their ‘I can’t’ things are. For me the first thought was weight loss. I can’t lose weight, it’s too hard. Secondly, I was about to try doing hill repeats for the first time in my running to help me be a fitter runner. I’m not sure I can do this. It’s going to hurt. It’s too hard. And then I came on to creativity. I can’t. No one would be interested. I’d fail.
Listening to that talk I felt God talking to me about tasking the risk and taking a step. Jumping into what God is calling me to and to stop saying I can’t. Because I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me.
I came home from my run, which by the way I manage 5 reps instead of the 4 I was aiming for, and sat with Ross as we registered my blog domain (WholeheartedJourney) instead of using the free one I’d been using and didn’t like the name of AND we registered a domain for my creative adventure which now feels more like a reality.

I also did some investigating into Compel Training which I had heard of over a year ago but hadn’t gone back to. Compel is part of Proverbs 31 Ministries which is headed up by Lysa TerKeurst of Made to Crave fame. They teach writers to write better. They occasionally open up their enrolment and it’s currently open and so the obvious thing to do is to sign up for a month and see how I get on.

Finally I listened to a talk this morning by a lady called Crystal Evans at the She Talks conference. She talked about being a Kingdom woman. She talked about how invites into interruptions and invitations in life and how, as writers and speakers and leaders, we can use these interruptions to grow and write and share. She said that “it’s in these broken places that the most beautiful things grow” and as she spoke I just felt God’s prompting that He can use the interruptions that have happened in my life for bigger things and that to write about them is wise. Crystal also repeated the idea that God uses us right where we are. We don’t have to be sorted or write but just open to using our gifts for the glory of God and THAT is what makes you a Kingdom woman.

DO WHAT YOU CAN WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

And so I continue to listen. I continue to ask God for His help daily with weight loss hoping that it becomes more of a habit. I continue to hope that I open myself up to God I will hear more of his interruptions and promptings and that I will do what I can with what He has given me knowing that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.