Walk Easy

Waiting. Not my favorite word. I prefer words like go, move forward, and take it and run. Such words bring the fresh wind of adventure with them and make me feel excited. But waiting...waiting makes me feel stuck. I've been intensely struggling with waiting for a while now - spinning my wheels until the ruts are deeper than my tires, chomping at the bit until my mouth bleeds - getting frustrated with myself and with God because I couldn't make sense of it all.

Enter Cinnamon -  a little, sorrel Quarter Horse mare that I started riding when I sub as a wrangler on the occasional weekend. What started as a working relationship grew into a hobby and I currently ride her at least once a week. Cinnamon is very smart, sensitive and talented. She is also extremely energetic and likes to run - all the time. One day we were out riding in the pasture and I started getting frustrated because I could not get her to walk. She was interpreting my every cue as a signal to move forward. However, that's not what I wanted. I wanted her to slow down, soften up and listen to me. Not that I have anything against running - I too love to run. However, I wanted her to quiet herself and understand what I was asking so that we could not just run but also harness that energy and dance. Every time she tried to rush ahead of me, I would pull her back and breathe, "waaaalllk... easy girl, just walk." And so we walked...and walked... and walked.

And as we walked, God placed His finger on my heart and told me that Cinnamon and I had a lot in common. I too needed to learn to discern the subtlety of different cues so that we could dance. In my rushing I was not only wasting energy that was better spent elsewhere but also passing up the opportunity to learn something greater. In order to attain that, I had to wait - listen and walk easy.

1 Peter 3:4 states that a gentle and quiet spirit is precious to God. I think that His response to our willing waiting is probably along the lines of the pleasure I felt today when, after several weeks of walking, Cinnamon and I started to dance a little. I felt her settle down and listen - she steadied her pace and bent under light pressure from my leg as she played with the bit in her mouth waiting for her next cue from my hands. I thought, "Yes, here we go!" Now, we can start to do great things.

When you can't "click here"

There are some times in life when you just can't Google the answer. Where an internet search will do you no good. In our fast paced, hyperlinked culture that brings a sense of helplessness. Our "crystal ball" has gone dark. What we most want to know is no longer at our finger tips. It brings us to the remembrance of how little we really know.
We are not the omniscient beings we like to consider ourselves. In times like these we remember how little control we really have. It brings us to our knees - where we should have been all along - in front of the only Omniscient, all powerful, all sufficient One who loves us more than we can imagine and who has us engraved on His hand. Here we wait and hope, pray and praise expecting the results that only He can bring - a God sized answer for our God sized question.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  - Romans 5:3-5 ESV

And then, when we have realized that no one other than God can fulfill our hope, there is none other who can receive glory when the answer comes.  So we wait for the victory that is coming.

Story Bricks

It's been over two years since I've blogged. I never really decided to stop, it just sort of faded into the background during two whirlwind years - an internship and then moving to Texas for my first "real" job. (I'd argue that the internship was pretty real, though!) I've thought about starting back several times, but each time have backed off because I couldn't decide where to start. I was intimidated by the thought of having to write a definitive post about the last two years.

Then, I saw this talk about using social media to tell your story in "bricks" - pieces that make up the larger whole. You don't have to share the entire gospel in one tweet. Instead, you build the bigger story one brick at a time. So, I'm not going to narrate all of what God has done in the last two years on one post. However, I'm going to share some bits and pieces because what He is doing is worth sharing.

I see these bits and pieces as cairns - markers that indicate a significant juncture. They're here as a memorial and possibly to help someone else who finds themselves on the same trail. And, maybe, after a while I'll be able to look back and catch a glimpse of the bigger picture - the eternal story that is being woven by the greatest Author of all time.

So, here's my commitment - one post a week from now until the end of the year. No word count, no theme requirement - just something worth sharing. Then, at the end of the year, I'll reevaluate and decide where to go from there. Here we go... journey on!