Recently, my husband and I made a day trip to the beach. It had been too long, and a lot of loss had occurred in our lives since our last visit. I can tell you that getting my feet on the sand and back in the water was long overdue! The beach has always been a place of solace and comfort for me. It is where I feel most connected to myself, to nature, and to the One who created it all. I feel God’s Spirit all around, and He speaks to my heart in ways that bring new perspectives and realizations. It is where He soothes my broken heart or wraps His arms around me in my grief or trouble. I can stand there for hours just listening to the sound of the waves as they tumble onto the beach around me. We all have places like this, places that touch our hearts and still our souls long enough for the noise of this world to fade into the background so that we can hear or see what we NEED to hear or see.
This life can be so complicated and layered. There is so much going on around us all the time. It is a frenetic pace and, if we aren’t careful, everything within us takes on that pace and the chaos that comes with it. We get so used to the noise of living that we forget how to actually live. The endless distractions or things clamoring for our attention manage to absorb our time and energy. It becomes the “norm,” and we don’t even recognize it anymore. We have endless and continual information rushing at us like an unstoppable tidal wave of distractions, tearing up everything in its path. As people of faith, we can get so caught up in trying to keep up with the pace and then we wonder why we struggle to feel connected to our Father. I can’t help but think of how He tells us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Isaiah 46:10). If I want to truly know Him and be confident in who He is and how He moves, then I must become still.
Being still is not an easy thing to do these days. Not only do we struggle for time in our schedules to do so but becoming still actually stirs movement in other ways. As a child of God, it is almost impossible to sit quietly for very long before we start to reflect, and when we reflect, our spirits turn to the One who created us, redeemed us, and lives within us. We hear the still, small voice within and sometimes it reveals things we need to change. Other times, it reveals truths we couldn’t see or hear in the cacophony of our daily lives. Noise can drown out so much, and as our world continues to become faster and faster, it is so incredibly important to slow down so that we can truly hear, see, and feel those profound things that He desires for us to understand.
Standing on the sand recently, with the waves lapping around my feet, I found myself back in that old familiar place. I found the stillness in every fiber of my being and the world began to make sense again. I’m not saying that situations in my life suddenly changed, or griefs I’ve had were suddenly gone, but rather that my perspective lifted higher, and I could breathe again. I love to stand and see what is revealed as the waves recede back into the sea. Beautiful shells or rocks appear, and they shimmer in the sunlight as it dances across their surface. Incredible sea creatures, different and colorful, stretch out into the warmth around them and provide a glimpse into the intricacies of God’s creation and the depth of his unending creativity. I don’t think twice about the fact the waves are constantly rolling back into the sea because there is beauty in what lies upon the sand as a result, things I may have never seen otherwise. These moments center me, and it wasn’t until after we returned home that something struck a chord in my heart so strongly that it reverberated through my mind.
There are times in life, certainly in mine, where I feel God’s presence all around me. Sometimes it comes through time spent in nature, with family, or in the embrace of a friend; sometimes it comes while standing with other believers, praising Him in song or sitting together as His family, spending time together with Him. But there are also times when it seems like maybe He’s not as near or that I have somehow lost my ability to hear Him, yet He has promised that He never leaves nor forsakes us. He is still with us as an endless sea of love that does not disappear, but rather ebbs and flows around us. There is a beautiful rhythm in the way He moves in our lives, sometimes seemingly nearer than others, but if we spend our entire life being so focused on watching the waves recede, we will never turn our vision to what is revealed when they do so. We will miss some of the very things our Father is trying to show us. He doesn’t recede to abandon; He recedes to reveal!
I am constantly amazed at how He speaks to us as His children. He finds ways to meet each one of us where we are, in whatever place we find ourselves at any given point in time. He knows exactly the language to speak that will open my heart, my ears, and my eyes so that I can find peace and understanding – not in having the answers, but in knowing that HE does. Those “languages” could be in images or scenes that come to mind, an impression of His voice within, the laughter and love of family or friends, or countless other things through which He speaks to us but make no mistake about this: If you are His child, He is speaking to you and your heart. The best way to hear Him is to be still and listen.
Whether you find yourself in times of sunshine or rain, abundance or want, joy or grief, remember you are never alone. Your Father, the One who loves you most and sacrificed Himself to make a way so that He could be with you again forever, is with you always. He knows exactly where you are and how to reach you…and He will never let you go.
Blessings!
Many of you who know me or have read my blog for the past few years know that I did not give birth to children of my own. I used to say I was not “blessed” with children of my own, but I have tried to change the way I look at it. Children are certainly a blessing from God, but so is every other gift with which God blesses us. And just like it is the responsibility of a mother or father to nurture, grow and raise his/her child, it is our job to nurture, grow and raise our appointed gifts. One gift from God is not greater than another and if we are living as we should, we will not treat them as such – in ourselves or in looking at those around us. God entrusts all of us with specific gifts that require sacrifice, patience, responsibility, passion, love in order to raise them. Those gifts also often bring us disappointment, frustration, and heartaches as we see them not turning out the way we planned, or when we make mistakes in how we raise them.
We really are all gifted in certain ways. God has given to each of us the abilities and interests we need in order to fulfill what we are called to do. He has equipped us to walk whatever paths are before us, and He has promised to go with us wherever we go, but there are times those paths (or those gifts) feel like a burden. I don’t know a parent who hasn’t had times of feeling burdened by the responsibility of raising his/her children. It doesn’t mean they don’t love their kids, but the reality of day-to-day living is far more challenging than anticipated. There are discouragements and frustrations that come along that make them question if they are doing the right things or dealing with their kids in the best ways to ensure they grow up to be good people. The same is true of our other gifts and talents. We know what we are called to do, or we recognize the gifts within us, but it is a continual learning process as to how we need to nurture them. We make decisions that involve our gifts and then second guess if that was really the best use of them. Other times we make obvious mistakes in the direction we go and then beat ourselves up for it.
There is another aspect of parenting that also applies greatly to our gifts: protection. Parents must protect their children, and we must also protect our gifts. Our talents, abilities and callings must be protected. People can be so mean and so incredibly judgmental of what we do with our lives. They can discourage us, or even try to forbid us from using our gifts when it doesn’t fit their ideas or beliefs about what we should be doing. People may even belittle the gifts themselves, making them seem meaningless or trivial when compared to the gifts or talents of others. For example, someone with the ability to be a great musician, speaker, athlete or business-man/woman are often lauded to have great gifts. It is “respectable” or “honorable” to be a doctor, lawyer, singer, athlete, etc. On the other hand, the man or woman who is gifted to understand people with disabilities, or to clean homes/buildings, drive a bus, or anything else that isn’t as “shiny,” are viewed as having lesser gifts. What about people who have the gift of praying or service? You know them, the ones who are quietly faithful to do whatever it is God has given to them to do, without accolades or applause. Are their gifts any less valuable? On the contrary, I’d say they have the greatest gifts of all! My point is that we don’t know each other’s children as well as know our own, and the moment we start thinking our gifts are better than someone else’s just because they look different, we are treading on very thin ice.
So today, I hope we will all step back and consider the gravity of parenting our respective gifts. It is a responsibility, and it can be difficult and disappointing at times, but it can also be a source of great joy! You are not here by chance, and you are not here to just take up space. We are here “for such a time as this,” and we need to turn our focus upward. We need to live according to the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness that has been given to us by our Heavenly Father and extend those things to the world around us. We need to encourage each other’s gifts, not envy them. We need to support each other, not tear each other down. We need to recognize the specialness of our own gifts from God and feel honored to be entrusted with raising them. There may not be a holiday here on earth to commemorate or honor us for the raising of our gifts, but if we do it humbly as we are called to do, there is coming day where we will be honored by our Heavenly Father when we hear the words, “Well done.”
The Cadence of My Soul 