A few months ago I got a text from a friend that read:

As I was reading this morning I came across this for you.  I don’t know why I was supposed to give it to you, but it was a feeling.  Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”

I didn’t know why that verse applied to me, either.  I certainly don’t want to be a fool!  So I thought, ‘I’ll just consider that verse in situations or decisions that come up.’  I relplied, “Thank you for that! I’ll will listen for the Lord to say more on that!” and went about my day.  I really meant what I texted her.  I asked the Holy Spirit to alert me to those areas in my life that this verse was meant for.

As the day wore on, I had a growing realization of how much my husband and I had been trying to handle privately, personally, quietly, prayerfully… And in isolation…  When my husband came home I showed him the text and suggested that we make a list of people to open ourselves up to and lean into to hear their prayerful counsel.  “It couldn’t hurt,” he reasoned.

We chose people who could understand the context we were in; people of prayer; people who had credibility with us.  We sent out some carefully composed letters, which lead to several meaningful conversations.  The conversations were edifying, to be sure – and yet they didn’t lead to any advice or direction.  Hmmm…

What they did lead to was a change in our approach to those things that weigh us down.  Somehow in the asking of a few, our hearts were opened to receiving advice as God sent it via others.  Of course, we employed discernment in filtering advice, because sometimes it’s doled upon you solely by the good intentions of those who love you.  Call us greedy, but we wanted more – we wanted Spirit-prompted advice given by the loving God who intends good for us.  Do you see the difference?  The good intentions of people versus the good intended for us by God?

All that to say, as we became more transparent with the decisions we needed to make and the struggles we were having, God started sending people our way from very different parts of the world with the same advice!  And it all began the same way (very similar to the text I received from my friend):

I was prompted to pray for you and share this with you, even though I don’t know if it’s relevant to you or not.

Ok, God… I’m listening…

The two things I’m hearing are this: 1) Pick out the splinters in your soul (that deals with identifying minor wounds that have festered, forgiveness, healing, and blessing), and 2) being grounded in Christ.  So I’m working on pursuing his presence far more than I pursue my problems.  I am working on being captivated by who he is and what that means to me.

Somewhere in this God is reminding me of who I really am.  After living in prolonged survival mode, I tend to slip back there out of habit.  It was my “normal” for so long…  I’m recognizing, as I spend time with this dynamic God of ours, how many days I’ve just existed.  And so in his presence I take a gulp of air and look around.  I pull myself up and out of that miry pit of what I became and take a few little-girl-arms-open-wide spins to shake off the doldrums, and I start to remember who I am…

This week, for example, I remembered that I love to read.  On every application form that I’ve ever filled out, where it says HOBBIES I write, “reading, walking in nature, photography, and DIY projects”.  But how long had it been since I had actually done any of those things?!  What did I do instead?  Nothing.  I existed.  I gutted out the day.  Obviously I have picked photography back up, but I still hadn’t read a book for myself in yeeeeeaaaarrrrrssss….  If you were to ask my son what I enjoy doing, I’m not sure what he would say!  And so… I’ve started to read again… Oh! And I tackled a DIY project this weekend on the spur of the moment.  That’s so… ME!  These are good indicators that I’m coming back to life!