Blocked

For a while now I’ve felt blocked in my writing. But I tend to do this through the years. I go through phases where I will write for a few months frequently and then I stop again for a few moths. Lately, I feel like I’ve been in a period of silence. Like God has shut my mouth (or, hands? since this is a blog…) and that it just hasn’t been time for me to speak. I’ve even been off all social media for months now just because I feel like it’s a season of silence – there’s nothing I really need to say and I don’t need to see projections of perfect lives all over the internet to further me into the slump I’m already in.

This morning on the way into work I listed to a sermon on seasons. The main scripture passage was Ecclesiastes 3:1-10 and how at every point in our life there is a season of some sort. Although it’s May 15, my current season is and has been for a while now winter. Things feel still….dead…like they’re not moving. But I was reminded this morning that while winter can appear to be nothing more than cold and death and stillness, there is actually A LOT of movement happening under the surface. Those microorganisms are consuming the dead stuff and are actually preparing the soil for Spring – a time of rebirth and growth, where flowers bloom and everything is buzzing with life.

So it got me thinking – What has God been doing during this season that I’ve been missing? When I think a lot about the last several months, these are the words that come to mind:

I’ve been living each day basically trying “to not mess up”, to do my best and make the most out of every opportunity, to be as efficient with my time as possible. I struggle with being a perfectionist and my expectations of myself are always way more than anyone else probably expects of me. I am exhausted. I am drained. I struggle constantly with doing what I “should do” instead of what has been given to me as “mine” to do. I struggle with how I pictured my life going for many years with the reality of how it is actually playing out. I wrestle with what I feel like my calling and passion “should be” versus what it actually is. I give in to enormous amounts of guilt because overall the “should” of my life does not match up what is actually going on. And the bottom line question I keep returning to is – where are all these “shoulds” even coming from?! Because no one is actually coming to me and telling me these things….they’re just all ideas that I’ve planted in my own head.

Let me paint you a picture. I think that may help. You see, in my teenage years this was the life I dreamed about: I would marry Brandon and we would have 3 girls. We’d live on about 10 acres of land and have a pond, a small homestead with a rustic house, and I would home-school the girls. I’d be the perfect wife and mom, making three home cooked meals a day, always keeping our home nice and clean, eventually even learning to sew. I’d make jellies and cakes and sell them at the farmer’s market on the weekends. The girls would spend part of their time inside with me learning but also time learning outside with Brandon. Yes, it would be perfect (that’s my enneagram 1 coming out). As I’m typing this out I can’t help but smile because of the drastic difference between this former dream and my reality. So let me now paint you a picture of that: I did marry Brandon, and we have one daughter, Autumn, who is now 4. We have a nice cozy home on about an acre of land directly beside a highway. Also on our acre are Brandon’s brother, his wife, and two of her sisters. We have a small little community and I absolutely love it. Both Brandon and I work full time. I work about 35 minutes away so I leave about 7 and get home right before 6. Brandon works swing shift. Autumn goes to daycare. I’m in grad school. We go to church about 25 minutes away in the opposite direction from where I work. We eat out way too much. I don’t exercise much at all. We don’t know if we want anymore children. We have 3 dogs and a guinea pig and haven’t gardened in 2 years now.

So what changed? For one, actually getting married and giving birth to your first child will wake you up out of dream land. Two, I think as you grow up you discover more about who you are and who God made you to be. You have conversations with your parents and friends – those people that are the closest to you – and they help discover the things you’re good at and the things you love. They encourage you when you’re down and speak hard truths to you when the need arises. And I think that helps open your eyes to the uniqueness that God created you with. Three, my environment changed. I went from being around people who all shared the same plans and goals to being around people who share a common purpose, but are fulfilling that purpose with very different dreams and goals. And that is okay! It’s great actually! It’s helping me to see that we don’t all have to do life the same way. As long as we are loving God, loving people, and being obedient unto Christ and His Word, we do life the way we are each meant to do life. And that will look different. And it is good.

So who am I? Yes my purpose is to love God, love people, and further His Kingdom, but what does that look like for me? What am I passionate about? What “sets my soul on fire”? Eh…I’m still not really sure. I’m on a journey of figuring that out. But before I do, I think there’s something very important that I have to accept first. My passion may look different from someone else’s passion. What sets my heart on fire may not set my closest friends’ hearts on fire. And if it fits the pattern of my life so far, it probably will be something different from what I would expect. It’s probably not going to be something I feel like I “should” do. BUT, whatever is “my thing, whatever “it” is that is mine to do, it’s no less special than anyone else’s thing. It’s important because it will be mine, and it will fit me just in the way that God fashioned my heart and soul and personality and all the uniqueness of me.  And I have to believe that to move forward.