I have been in the waiting for what seems like forever. I know that I am not the only one. I want to share my story and if you are in this place too then I would like to give you 3 things that you can do to get unstuck while you are in the waiting.

This past week has been rough.  All I could feel was sadness and anger. Circumstances have forced me to be unable to move forward in some places in my life. It’s so strange that somehow these things have the power to narrow our focus and gain our attention so strongly we can’t feel, or see anything else.These situations have caused me to pause at what has happened to me and ask the question “Why God?” and “What did I do wrong?” I am a pretty resilient person. So, when life and the cares of this world grab me hard and throw me to the ground when my soul feels so off,  and out of sorts, I know what to do!? I write! And trust me the enemy of my souls knows how to distract me and keep me busy so that I will not write because he knows, as well as I do, that when I write, It does something in me that he can not control. It is one of the amazing gifts God has given to me, not because I am so good at it but rather because of what He can do when I use this gift and tool He has given.

All I could hear from my soul within me this week was “Oh God, how long, O Lord?” My spirit within me crying out for resolve, for change, for movement, for salvation. My soul lamenting in anguish “when will this season be over?” If you are anything like me, then when you have gotten to a standstill space, you will do one of two things or a vortex spin of both. I would like that I always would land on #2 but hey, that’s a post for the perfect woman and I am not her. It’s not even the right heart attitude but it just seems better than the first.  Trust me it’s not.

Here’s what I do:

1. I look for any way to control my immediate surroundings to release the pressure like a valve. I do anything will help me tell myself “I See Movement!” I clean like a banshee. I drill sergeant at my kids to clean their rooms, clean the bathroom, the kitchen, and my spouse gets the feeling that I am not happy and I don’t try to alleviate the pressure for him.  I am not thinking of him. I am fixated on making myself feel better at the expense of others. I just set out to FIX something, anything!
2. Fall on my knees in desperation for the presence of the King hoping that this posture would be like a insta fix it. Its a good start but doing the right motions and positions never produces what we are really searching for. Why? Because works never save us. It’s a heart connection I really need now.

There is a narrow way that touches the heart. But my heart has been disconnected, fretful and full of worry and what it really needs is rest and I know that. But too often, I don’t want rest. I want a reset! A quick fix. If you are like me, you want to be comfortable. You don’t want to enter the messy place of the heart with another. We don’t want to enter the often uncomfortable space of communion. 

What can you do to get unstuck if you find yourself in this place of waiting? 

1. Let other’s in

Comfort fades. Communion is eternal. No wonder the latter doesn’t satisfy.

I use to fall into these types of moments and think  “I have lost my way and I have fallen from grace.” I would judge myself harshly and then go into hiding, not wanting others to see me at my worst, at my most vulnerable.  I now know that these types of moments are not a roll call on my character or my spirituality. They are, however, moments that are calling me out. Calling me out for connection, for communion and not just with God but with others.  “Carry each other’s burdens…” (Galatians 6:2)

I am looking for the “me too’s!” in the room of my life.

I read this quote after a particularly hard day. I had taken a work phone call from a friend and in the middle of it, my friend, on the other end of the phone said: “Hey, are you ok?”  The easy answer was “yeah, I’m fine.” But the true answer was “I’m struggling!” We talked a few more minutes. She heard me. She could feel me. I was not my normal self and she knew it. My other friend who had come to help me in the office that day just sat with me. Her comforting presence, to just be there, was enough for me to verbalize “I’m sad! and I’m angry” and while I cried, she hugged me.  It was what’s inside these little exchanges that are so profound and moving to our heart. It’s connection.

True, real connection!

When you find those people, don’t let them go! They are your “Me too!” people.

2. Rest

I do not want to live life being resistive to what God wants to do in me! When I find myself in this place and I find resistance in my soul, clogging me up. When I am resisting my emotions and just trying to hold it all together. ..When I am resisting letting the truth of the current situation touch my mind and instead find myself in la la land, mentally talking to myself in my best “positive” voice, but I am wearing my angry eyebrows… When I resist letting others into my heart, to see my pain, sadness and fear it is then I must recognize I am resisting truth and living a lie. I have to remember what the Lord taught me about RESIST earlier this year in March:

RES (is) T  = Trust the Father with what IS and REST in what Jesus has done!!

I have to trust the Father with what IS actually happening around me and in me, then I must crawl, claw, and drag my heart to the place where Jesus meets with me and He will give me rest. This is the place where I stop trying to fix it by emotionally hiding, mentally justifying and projecting “all is well” to the people around me and I let God transform my heart. This is the place where ALL BECOMES GRACE. He transforms it and I begin to see that the goodness of God endures continually.

There is no one else for me, None but Jesus!

This song here is one that calls me back every time.

If you are in this waiting? If your heart is wearing a button that says:

Enter the space of rest today! Talk to someone. Let them hold you. You don’t have to be strong when He is our strength.

….And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor. 12:9-10

And when you see that God has given you “me too” people then come to the altar (listen to it) and let Him change you and how you see what is happening from the inside out.

3. Write and Worship

I write and worship to right my soul into its true place.

Where He writes words on my heart: I GIVE YOU REST and YOU ARE LOVED.

The reason I write and I journal is so that I can capture my lessons and words from the Lord and remember them, and live them, going and growing forward. So today, I stand on the words that have held my soul up for many years now. Today, I pray them! I shift my focus to the truth’s they represent. I ask the Holy Spirit to make them real to me again. Today I worship. I listen to the songs all linked in this post that encourage my heart. This one that my soul knows is the anthem for this year to me. You can listen here Take Courage.

Let’s get unstuck in the waiting. Let us move into the place where we can breathe free even when the circumstances don’t change. Find your words to Stand on! These are mine. My life verses that have held me most of my Christian life:

2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways a acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path. 

I write them again and again in my journal. Letting my hand once again translate the words into my hearts. Words I Build my life upon and choose to live by.

I hope this post encourages you as it has me, while we are in the waiting.

Thanks for listening,

Starla