I listened to a podcast today.
Okay, I have a problem. I am newly obsessed with my podcasts. And taking a 4-mile walk every.single.day. ALL BY MYSELF. I'm not sure if one of these obsessions fuels the other, or if they're just their own separate obsessions that just work really well together. But I have eaten a total of 2 desserts since January 1, and between that and the *thousands* of miles I walk every day, I'm finally seeing some changes in this body that I thought might never change. Or belong to me ever again.
Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm obsessed with walking. And podcasts. And the one I listened to today was ridiculously on target for where I'm living right now. Like, I had to listen to it a second time just to write down all the quotes that I knew I'd need to come back to.
And I will need to come back to them. Over and over and over again.
You see, my heart is split wide open. And bleeding profusely. Sometimes I feel like if I don't staunch the flow, it might never stop. Or even if it does, the damage will be irreparable. The scars too hideous to bear.
Jesus, can you heal even this?
I don't know how much of the story to tell here. How many of the details are important? Do you ever feel like you have waited and longed for this one door to be opened to you? Or maybe you even have a couple doors you've been waiting to see open. Even just a crack. Really, we'll take anything, right? Just a chance to pour ourselves into the something that we have given up for so long? The thing that we've been waiting to get back. Waiting to see fulfilled. Waiting for the chance to finally step into. The dream, the calling, the thing that you thought was impossible but then, just maybe, was impossibly finally within reach. The one that makes your heart beat fast and your step seem bouncy...bouncy for the first time in years.
I got a taste of this. And for two glorious months, it was oh so sweet.
It filled me in places I didn't even know were empty. There was an emptiness that existed even though I was being completely filled up with Jesus. Have you ever felt that? I was in a season of some of my most filling, most enriching, most regular abiding time with the One who knows me more intimately than I ever will know myself, yet there was still an emptiness that existed because of a calling yet unfulfilled. Some of these things I don't even know until I write them, much less understand. But this filling was so sweet and exciting and energizing and fun. And quite literally, divine.
And I thought it was just the beginning, but in reality...it was merely a taste of something that I would never truly get to enjoy. Like a baby whose life is ripped from its mother's womb, or the anticipation of a new mother's joy that turns to anguish at a life lost at 38 weeks, I feel like this fulfillment that I was finally about to get to walk into has been torn from that tender place of trust in my heart. Ripped right out in a gaping, bloody mess.
And I'm not quite sure how to stitch the life back into it again.
Sure, maybe there's another dream, one just waiting in the wings. And maybe it's even beautiful. But I don't want it. I don't want to see it, and I don't want it to be mine. God, you can keep your dreams, or give them to someone else. I already have one. And you have stolen it away from me.
So this podcast I heard today: That Sounds Fun with Annie F Downs. She was interviewing Tauren Wells, and he had the audacity to say something that just shouldn't be true. He talked about this thing he called a "divine expiration." He talked about the ending of a season being the right of a Holy and All-Knowing God. That maybe God has the right to end our dreams, to expire them as He so chooses. Specifically, Tauren said,
"So many times for us, we're - with good intention - very committed to doing what God has called us to do and the assignment that he's given us without really realizing that in a moment God could speak to us and change what our obedience really looks like because the directive changes...You're willing to go. Are you willing to stop? We're willing to run, but are we willing to wait and pause and hear what God has to say to us?"
But what if we don't want to stop? What if I don't want to wait or pause, or even hear what God would say? What if I just want to keep running, full steam ahead, into the dream that I thought He had promised me?
I finally got a direction, an open door. I finally saw the green flag, the signal to start running again, running towards this dream that I had been waiting and longing for for so long. Permission to lengthen my stride and feel the wind in my hair. Permission to dream.
Then something shifted, and I would feel yanked a slightly different direction. Slightly off course. But that's okay, I don't need a direct route. Sometimes it just feels good to get those legs moving again. Then, another yank. This time, it was due to limitations. Time, other responsibilities, limited resources. There are so many. Yank. Yank. Yank. Or the learning curve of getting back in the game after years on the sidelines. Yank.
We have a dog, Cody, who may actually like my daily 4-mile walk more than I do. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it's true. He can tell we're going on a walk even before I put on my shoes or grab his leash because he's learned to recognize the pants I wear for my walks. No lie. My dog has learned to recognize my outfits.
Cody also really likes when we do the same path every day. He likes knowing where we're going and which direction to turn at the intersections and when we're heading towards home. He likes the known. What he can't handle is when we take a new route or, heaven forbid, go a different direction on the same path. He weaves back and forth and bumps into my legs and yanks on the leash in his restless, anxious wanderings. Yank. Yank. Yank.
It's in those moments when I wish he'd just stop pulling and just let me lead.
Just stop. Or wait. Or pause.
That he'd trust me enough to choose the path for our journey.
"This is what the Sovereign Lord,
the Holy One of Israel says,
'In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,'
but you would have none of it."
Isaiah 30.15
Lord, let me find my salvation in repentance - for the many, many times that I have darted ahead, only to be yanked back or yanked in a direction that I wasn't expecting. In repentance for my lack of trust. And my unwillingness to stop. Or wait. Or even pause. Let me find my salvation in Your leading, not my own.
Let me find my salvation in rest. Let me undeterredly evict the rush and hurry from my life and take a stand for resting. Take my stand IN resting. Let me find my salvation in allowing You to be the one to go before me and make a way. Slow my feet even in the midst of the swirling busy all around me. Even if the resting means I have to stand still and watch my dream die.
Let me find my strength in quietness. Stillness. Quiet my mind with the peace of this daily abiding with You and in You. Still my hands and my feet from the striving. And in the still quiet waiting, knit together my heart with my children's, and my husband's. Build a strength and a stability deep within me that will not only be sufficient for my eventual season of pursuit, but that will be sufficient for them too.
And let me find my strength in trusting You. You alone are worthy of it. You have proven yourself faithful over and over and over again. You alone. And even when my trust comes at a price - even the steepest - let me choose You, and let my choosing become my place of greatest strength. I can't choose this on my own, so you are going to have to help me.
And Lord, let me not be so stubborn and fixed on my own way that I give up your gifts of salvation and strength for the sake of walking the same path, or knowing where we're going.
Or feeling the wind in my hair.
Or chasing my own God-given dreams.
Some endings are divine expirations. So I open my hands and allow the wind to blow, not through my hair, but through my empty fingers.
