Sitting in the sunshine on a misty beach one morning after a run, I am filming a video for my hubs. It’s been 6 weeks since we’ve seen one another face to face. Our plans for reuniting, fugacious.
I’m in my natural position for prayer...meaning I’m breathing, alive.
I’m on a daily quest for the Spirit to move in me regarding my Word for the Year; PURPOSE.
My walk, expectant. My eyes, upward. My heart, wide open.
I’ve had a great season in Costa Rica and also had the opportunity to fly up to Guatemala to spend some time. What an incredible country! It just drove home in me our love for culture and travel and people and an appreciation for this wide world of experience and chance and imaginings. I pray we never lose our sense of playfulness for adventuring and shenanigans. It’s one on a list of a million things that bonded us as a young 20-something couple, and as we age, I continually pray God’s favor on our health and an everlasting enthusiasm to traverse the globe.
But this morning, as I soak in a few moments of sunshine, I know it’s time to return to the sticky, hot of the South. Leaving one appreciation and devotion for another. One palm-treed, golden sand beach for the city, foodie delights, white sand beaches, and mountains to climb.
I talk this morning, post sent video, to my hubs and we get a ticket home for a couple of days later. Just enough time for those last-minute cocktails, dinners, hugs, and to get packed.
Is there anything better than a homecoming? Both here and there. Trading the friend-filled nights of delicious, home-cooked vegan food, wine, laughter and reunion with the open arms of my readied hubs as I traipse off the plane, suitcase, backpack, and surfboard bag slung over my shoulder.
Being alone for a month and a half (ok truly never alone but you get my drift) has allotted me some wonderful time to soak in the presence of God. NOT that I can’t do this anytime, but there is something about that set-apart, independent time that the Bible talks about. That night-silence, when it’s just you and your prayers and the whispers that you only hear in a placid mind until you fall asleep to a cicada-fueled symphony.
Day after day I felt the infusing of God on my heart as I prayed about PURPOSE.
After returning, I was flung headlong into dog slobbers, Indian food, trail friendships, morning coffee brought to my bedside, and the bottomless love of a soul mate. Also back to our church family, which proved to be one of the best weeks to come back as we sat in worship with Kari Jobe and her husband Cody to sing a gorgeous song as a blessing over humanity. Joining that with a teaching on our “stories” and how the stories in our lives and what we believe affects us. We all have stories. I have saturated myself in this message over the past week. Considering the ways I have implemented the Word of God into my life and trying not to miss the bigger story of what God is telling me and teaching me. To not fill in the space that is in me, meant for him, with unnecessary baggage, so that His bigger story can be told in me and through me.
Over the years as G & I have made transitions in our lives together... BOY have there been plenty, we firstly go in seeking guidance through prayer and know that when there is tension or conflict to look at it through a lens of goodness. Our God lens. To get quiet and not allow doubt to cut off what God is speaking in our lives.
We BOTH found it remarkable that as we are sitting together in church last week , the title of the message was MAKE ROOM FOR THE NEW.
Oh Lord, how you know our hearts.
“Make room for the new even when you don’t see it coming.”
I love a good Spiritual nudge.
Just over a year ago, we made a move we were both scratching our heads over BUT are now seeing the fruit from. A plan that worked out, just not quite in our plan-frame, is now syrup-dripping with goodness. The two of us at odds over a few things. He; feeling led in one direction on a major purchase, and me… n o t quite feeling right about it in my spirit. We continued to pray. We both felt the sparks of confusion and tension.
“Did you know,” our Pastor said, “that God can be giving you exactly what you want, but the tension it takes to produce growth is super uncomfortable?” “Things may come into your life in one season as a problem or opposition and are the same things God will use to create opportunities to know him better and make him known.”
Have we made room to receive the new things that God has sent us that we’ve asked for?
Sometimes, I have the feeling that I may NEVER see the purpose, or at least to the extent to how God uses me. I DO know that although it’s not right in front of my eyes, it doesn’t mean I haven’t had an impact. I get glimpses...but we don’t see the way God sees. I don’t always see how something I’ve said or have done has affected others good or BAD minutes or years down the road. I am human and know I am not immune from being a fool sometimes. Then….there are those fleeting moments when I get a small peek and see in tangible ways how I’m fulfilling His purpose. My daily prayer is always “allow me to be open for YOU to use me in any way you see fit and allow me to always turn others towards YOU.”
I know He uses our past experiences, good and bad. The pain I walked through decades ago, that has long-since healed, may just be the balm that someone else needs for their own hope to bloom.
I DO pray for discernment. Because some people are just out for a hurtful story to learn about you and not because they are interested in walking along side you in healing. If you’re out to judge a book by its cover….you’ve come to the wrong illustrator.
I have a confession. It will sound TERRIBLE...but when we knew God was giving us the opportunity to move to the southeast United States, and by saying, “giving us the opportunity,” I mean….uprooting our semi-laid plans, for His flawless recipe...my first thought was “but….that accent!” I know, I know! Hate me now...I’m just being authentic. So….as we are sitting in church together this past week, I am NOT kidding AT ALL...our pastor is talking about CHANGE, and he says “maybe you didn’t want to move to Charlotte...because you hate the southern accent.”
Ummm…. I sat real still and moved only my eyes around through the hundreds in the congregation because I was SURE everyone was looking directly at me.
Boy, did I prejudge what is and isn’t good for me. What limited thinking.
I am happy right now to be back with my love. I’ve realized that I’ve allowed some doubt to creep in and cut off mid-sentence, some things God might be speaking into our lives. Like our Pastor has said “When God is speaking don’t stop at the comma! If you stop at the comma you never see the..“but….”
Trust me, that tiny, diminutive, oftentimes inconsequential conjunction can connect you to a multitude of healing. Of fulfillment. Of joy! It can take you from, “I feel stuck” BUT “I know new possibilities are coming my way?” From, “I have guilt from my past” BUT “God is a God of forgiveness and second chances, never guilt. He has washed me clean of my past, only to use my experience to help someone else.” It can take you from a diagnosis BUT turn you towards His healing, learning to rely solely on Him and open an opportunity for family and friends to soothe you with their hospitality, love, and prayer. ONLY later to use you for a future person that may be feeling scared because of their diagnosis. It can take a past mistake that has haunted you BUT now that you have walked the path, you have a voice to share your knowledge with others. From a past prison, into a bright future. It can take you from a place of feeling like you lost something but knowing God just moved it.
Change is amazing. New circumstances grow you so much as a person. You learn so much about yourself, your resilience and your passions. As I look back on the changes we’ve had over the years, God’s goodness is all over them. So prominent. He used some incredible opportunities to sharpen us, to bond us, to realize what’s truly important and what’s just unnecessary. To forge long-lasting, true, friendships over many miles and many countries. To drop off the unneeded baggage. I know God often uses a change in ways that we don’t always feel good about; losses, finances, marriages, sickness...Do you use these as opportunities to turn to Him? Sometimes we are thrust into a position that ALL we can do is rely on Him, which IS exactly where we should be. So if there is change, or tension, be expectant for transformation. Feeling mournful over a situation, believe the miracle. Fear or failure, choose faith.
I pray that we always allow room in ourselves for the new.
Marie Lakes Junction. 2.67 miles from the top of Donahue Pass. This pass is long. 23-miles. And we have been climbing for 2 days already. We will go up and over the pass in the morning. We are camped next to a gorgeous creek with the pass in view. I climbed to the highest point of an outcropping of rock that I could find at camp and picked up limited reception on my cell. I called G. He and Finn (our pooch) are in Bend, OR, making their way to Yosemite to retrieve their weary hiker. I cannot believe we are almost done with this journey. It makes my heart ache.
speed. It was a lot of switchbacks and granite. A lot of work. J tripped and pulled her calf which slowed our pace a little. K and I went ahead and found some great campsites. It was earlier than we would have usually stopped, around 1:30, but it allowed for the day to become a little unscripted. I always know when things don’t go as planned there is a HIGHER plan. I sat on a flat rock out near the water, bathed in sunlight. I was praying and thanking God for this journey. This adventure. The able body I have to be able to complete the things I love. The passions that drive me. His passions. I thanked Him for WHO I AM and the person he’s created in me. I marveled at the fact that as I looked up, even the pines and the mountains stretch their way up towards the Heavens. Even they are in praise! I was lying there in the silence, listening, God really started to speak to my heart. “Your walls Paula! It’s really time to fully allow me to break them down.” I sat bolt upright! Years of not knowing how to love and be loved flooded me. I have always held people at a distance. That’s what hurt and betrayal do to you. I know this. That’s a part of me that is broken. My past had taught me that trust was something that cannot be easily given and once broken so terribly hard to repair. I was really never taught, unconditional love. Or maybe just never felt it. Laying there in that moment, in the wilderness, I felt a deep, cemented-on-layer, strip away. It pealed right off and fell to the ground. And oh it hurt! I knew this was a point of complete rawness. Complete vulnerability. I don’t trust people because they constantly let you down. What a HUGE fault of mine. What chances have I missed because of this? Even with my incredibly, amazing husband, who has shown me nothing but complete unconditional, true, passionate, deep, love, respect, and adoration I think in my mind I’ve felt there has always been that chance of him trampling my heart. I am not sure that I have ever truly let love completely in. And that is tragic. It was time. It was like a veil being lifted. I sat out on the rocks for a long time. I cried, I laughed and I cried again. God had to take me into the wilderness, in the silence, in the deepest canyons and highest mountains to peel me down, to allow me to see and feel and realize and taste the incredible love all around me. His love is so vast and so wide and so deep. To allow me to see how my past has shaped me, but for it to be used as GOOD! I have walked some pretty desperate and terrible roads and its ok. In fact, it’s amazing, because God brought me through. There is no other answer than that! He strengthened me and gave me a story to share. Not to be ashamed about. Not to dwell about or continue to feel hurt by, but to thrive out of, to show His goodness and his love and his miracles. That no matter the past, He is the present and the future. And He is so good and so faithful and so giving and SO full of healing!
J, woman you are so tough. You could’ve allowed your falls and injuries to side-line you, but you just kept on. You were such a caretaker and source of reason for our group. Your sweet disposition combined with a kick-ass attitude was infectious. I loved your jokes, your singing and the games you initiated to help keep our minds off of the mire of the trail on those days when we all felt defeated. I learned a lot from you. You are so smart. The day we lost you out there my gut was hollow, I was worried, but I knew you are resourceful and smart and not one to go down without a fight. The Cheech lighter was the BOMB! Thanks for that and the gift of getting to know you.
I have loved reading through my journals of the JMT. It made me laugh out loud and become completely overcome with emotion at times. This trip stripped me down to bare bones and built me right back up. I am happy for the sheer blessing of this trip, for friends with the same passions, for a supportive family even when they are nervous or unsure of my outrageous decisions. For a husband that SO gets me, encourages the utter crazy in me and loves me to the pit of my being no matter the flaws and dirt and decay. The fact that you applaud and spur-on every hair-brained wild desire that I have in life and rally around me says so much about the man you are! God blessed me with such an incredible partner in life! I am so thankful that you’re the water that feeds the soil of my reckless, wild heart! I love that I felt through the adversity, I was reintroduced to myself. That we all chose to seek out the seed of triumph in the adversity along the way. I am grateful for the friends and family that encouraged us, prayed for us, thought about us, and checked in on us when they could. I am even more grateful for those who allowed me to come home a changed person and loved me all the same. Knowing my scars and my battles. My weaknesses and my strengths. Loving the soul of who I am and allowing me the true GIFT of loving you so deeply and so generously.
sporty mama life..... 