Tag: Peace

Embrace Grieving

Embrace Grieving

As you may have heard from my last post, I recently graduated! It is an exciting transition for me with much anticipation towards what is in store for this next season of life. However, what many of us forget as we all make great transitions in life, is that we still experience endings. In order to begin, often something else must end.

These endings can mean we experience some sort of loss and can bring unexpected grief and emotions for which we may not be prepared. Towards the end of my last semester, I started to experience just that. Had I not experienced it before, and had a wise counselor (yes, counselors go to counseling too) speak into my life about grief, I may not have been prepared for the conflicted emotions and thoughts that emerged.

Someone does not have to die for us to experience losses in our life. Loss also does not always mean something negative happened.

Just as we all lose our baby teeth, losses in life allow for new opportunities and growth.

Over the past weeks and months, I have been in a sort of grieving process of this season of life coming to an end. It was a long and cumbersome season where I worked long days and studied and went to school in the evenings. I had a big breakup during this season and also fell in love and got married in this season. God was so faithful throughout the process, even though it was not always enjoyable. Somehow, even though I looked forward to and longed for this day to come, there is a part of me that grieved. I made friends during this season, and I also did not spend as much time with friends as I would have liked.

Grief can be a motivator. When we grieve, we recognize our feelings and the good and the bad, but we don’t have to stay there.

There comes a point in time where we have to recognize and accept that things have changed, or are changing.

“We add to our suffering when life changes and we behave as if it hasn’t.” Mark Nepo

We can do something in the future, as a result of what grief has taught or is teaching us. My grieving has shown me that my word for the year – EMBRACE- was the perfect word. I will always be in some kind of season working towards some kind of goal. That does not need to stop me from embracing moments with the people I love and creating memories. I can pay attention- LISTEN- to what is happening around me and in me, and move forward in peace.

 

Are you in a transition season of life?

 

Is there something that you have not yet grieved?

 

Is there something changing in your life that you’re trying to act like it is not happening?

Longings Fulfilled

Longings Fulfilled

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

It’s amazing to me how true this verse is. I feel like lately, God has been fulfilling several of my longings (or maybe I’ve just been more aware).  I longed to have a husband who loved and cared for me radically, and have enjoyed being married to God’s gift of a husband to me for the past 9 months. Not all of the longings are as big as marriage though. I longed to do yoga in a Christian environment, and just recently got to experience the beautiful fulfillment, that keeps going! Also, I longed to provide a space for women to be: be themselves, write truth, experience peace, and so much more. This past Saturday was a small start at doing just that, in light of a larger longing that God has placed within me.

As I was filled with joy and life at each of these fulfilled longings, I realized something more. Not only did God fulfill these hopes, these longings of mine, but he was also the one who GAVE me the longings in the first place.

It is said that God will give you the desires of your heart when you delight in him (Psalm 37:4), but he is also the one who places many of those desires in there to begin with!

It’s like God gives us double gifts when he gifts us with deep desires or soul longings, and then he gifts us again when he satisfies and fulfills those longings.

It gives me hope for my longings yet to be fulfilled. The ones that have been deferred for a while, but my heart has not grown sick, because I’ve experienced so much life from other longings fulfilled.

What are some longings that you have? In what ways has God fulfilled some of your longings already? Have you delighted in God, and has he given you desires that have yet to be fulfilled?

Pray with me:

Father, thank you for being the giver of good gifts. Thank you for the many longings you have fulfilled in my life. Thank you for the desires, the dreams, and callings you have placed within me. I pray I can rejoice at these gifts, and steward them well. I pray I can be patient with the process you have me in to reach the fulfillment. May you get all the glory as you fulfill the deepest longings of our soul.

Amen.

Pay Attention: 1 Year Later

Pay Attention: 1 Year Later

Last year, yesterday, I wrote a blog post called pay attention (thanks FACEBOOK for telling me!). Yesterday (this year) I had another “pay attention” moment. At the moment I am in Costa Rica, it is 6:45am, and I am waiting to eat breakfast that starts at 7. Yesterday, the group of world changers I am with decided to go white water rafting. We got all signed up, strapped up, and then trained up to prepare ourselves for the crazy waters ahead. Our guide taught us some commands like: “forward” meaning we all paddle forward; “lean in” meaning there are rocks nearby and we should lean into the boat lest we fall out; “get down” means there is extremely turbulent waters and the whole crew needs to get in the boat and weather the storm until it passes; finally, he told us the commands for the various sides like “left side back, right side forward” meaning we need to somehow turn the boat to maneuver it down the river. This was all very adrenaline pumping and while we were thinking about our safety and listening to the commands, I realized I was paying no attention to anything else going on around me besides the people in my boat. As soon as we encountered some peaceful waters, I had to intentionally remind myself to look up and remember where I was-in COSTA RICA-and enjoy the beauty that surrounded me before the next Rapids engulfed my mind. 

After this amazing rafting experience, I was reflecting on how much my life is like white water rafting in many ways. Between a full time job and ministry, grad school, a serious relationship and managing other relationships with family and friends among countless other things, my life often feels like one rapid after another. Managing the boat, steering in the right direction and screaming “forward!” to the rest of my soul. In those times, I have little time or energy to enjoy my surroundings and rest. 

Like the peaceful times in the raft, I need to intentionally remind myself of where I am and often who I am, in the moments when I can rest and relax. It wasn’t until those calm spots on the river when I truly started to recognize and embrace that I was rafting in Costa Rica with my friends and we were working together so well to navigate the waters. 

The last command our guide constantly shouted at us was “STOP!” Where we stopped paddling forward or doing what we were doing to just ride the river. 

While I am experiencing my time of rest and fun in Costa Rica, I want to make the most of it and enjoy it to the fullest! However, I now will take back this little piece of wisdom to “pay attention” when I stop. 


I hope you can do the same, wherever you are! 

Fear in His Hands

Fear in His Hands
Oh Lord please forgive me for deep down in my heart
I’ve realized what I’ve harboured almost from the very start. 
See I’ve always had plenty, yes, more than enough,
but somehow I still worry that one day I’ll have none. 
So I fret and I fear of the future trials to come.
And work and save up to pay for the potentially large sums. 
I work day to day, honorable enough I am sure, 
but, see, my motives are not always very pure. 
For somewhere along the way I have wrongly presumed,

Continue reading “Fear in His Hands” →

The Advantage of Bumpers

The Advantage of Bumpers

Today as I was thinking about life and such, God brought this picture to my mind.

Bowling has gutters and if we aren’t careful or skilled, the ball will end up in the gutter. However, someone came up with this wise idea to put up bumpers in order to guide the ball to where it needs to go (for those of us less skilled at bowling).

Often in life, we can foolishly end up in the gutter and miss the mark completely. However, God put wisdom in place to guide us to where we need to go. James tells us that we don’t have to do anything special to receive that wisdom except ASK!

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:5

We only need to ask God for wisdom and he will generously give it to us without finding fault!
We have the opportunity to live with wisdom to get us going in God’s direction, and help us make that mark. We cannot do it on our own, we just need to ASK GOD!

Will you ask Him today?

 

Discipline and Creating New Habits -Part 1

Summer is a time where many of us have that little bit of extra time in our schedule to do with as we please. For me, that means I finally get around to all of the things I have been wanting to do, but simply did not have enough time for during the rest of the year. AKA Goals, aspirations, book lists, exercise habits, eating habits, money budgeting, the list is endless. It seems like every day I find another thing to add to my summer goal list. The hard part, however, is actually creating the time and space to accomplish those things and do what you want to do. Life happens, you get tired and want to veg on the couch or sleep in that extra five minutes, and before you know it, the summer is over and it is back to a packed schedule and shorter days.

This summer, I am stepping up and not letting the long days pass me by. But, I did not realize how hard it is to form new habits. Sleep seems so much more vital in the morning than when I set my alarm the night before, and it seems so much easier to watch a quick show on Netflix (or maybe two, or three) than to read a couple chapters of that book, or my Bible.

Thankfully, quite a long time ago, I wrote this verse on a notecard and placed it on my wall. Normally I walk right past it, but today I paused and read it over again and thanked God for his sovereign timing and wisdom.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12:11(NIV)

I would encourage you to read Hebrews 11 and 12 in their entirety to fully understand the context and direction of the entire passage. Chapter 11 speaks of all the great people throughout the history of the Bible and chapter 12 goes on to encourage those in the present day to not give up. Now the content of this particular passage in chapter 12 discusses discipline as discipline in the form of hardship or similar to that of a father disciplining his child. Discipline is a part of training a child in the way he or she should go, meaning it is not always an act when the child misbehaves or makes a mistake, but a constant presence guiding and directing the path of that child to help him or her learn and grow to one day become a mature adult.

Sometimes God can give us the direction or desire and it is up to us to obey and take those steps of forming the habits that will set us up for success in what he wants to do in us and through us.

How are we able to do this?

Verses 2 and 3 tell us to look at the life of Jesus for our example of someone who did not give up and lived a life devoted and disciplined, because his eyes were focused on the joy set before him.

What is the result?

Like verse 11 above says, discipline produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

Maybe the discipline you are experiencing is in the form of a trial, or maybe it is in the form of creating new habits to take you to the next level in your relationship with God or his call on your life. Whatever it may be, I encourage you to keep pressing on and take a look at the two verses following verse 11:

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Hebrews 12:12-13 (NIV)

The discipline, that leveling of the paths for your feet, is worth it, the harvest of righteousness and peace is coming!

…to be continued…

 

 

This blog post is one of a two-part series about discipline and creating new habits.

Tuesday Morning Tea

This lovely Tuesday morning has been off to a beautiful start. First there was the sunrise. Then the love that I received from my Heavenly Father, and now the tea that combines all of my favorite flavors into one. Trader Joe’s coconut green tea with lemongrass and ginger. Could there be a better combination? Today I am thankful for the little things. Today I pray that there can be less of me and more of You, God. Today I am, my Father is the Great I AM. He needs no other name but has countless others. His majesty and glory are on display for the world to see, we simply need to awake and arise out of our slumber. That is all for this morning. Renewing my mind and my spirit, resting in God alone.

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Roots of truth

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The whisperings of the wind

Flutter and surround my being.

I often get caught up in this whirlwind

And sometimes stop thinking.

I stop knowing,

Knowing the truth.

The constant, steady tree with roots.

Roots that go down deep

And spread out wide.

That will always keep

Me still inside.

Peace

That flows like a river.

Sometimes the breeze makes me shiver.

I want the truth with deep down roots instead of the wind

making the air increasingly thinned,

all of its noise fills up my ears, with little room left to think or to speak,

I hopelessly feel like I’ll slip because I’m weak.

Those roots, and that river, that steady slow growth,

remind me I’m loved and give oh so much hope.

Father, Please help me!

To remember your truth,

Not forgetting the words that I memorized as a youth.

I pray that I will forget the words of this world,

That strangle and poke at this weak little girl.

May your truth reign in my life and over this earth,

So people may see and know of YOUR worth!

 

Poem by Ella Stewart