“It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”
:: freedom. choice. sacrifice. I’ve been thinking a lot about these words lately. In a way they do not seem like words that go together. We are called to sacrifice yet, we are meant to live in freedom and we have freedom to choose what our lives look like. I love that God trusts us enough to give us freedom to choose and at the same time I am often overwhelmed with what that means. Apparently humans make about 612 decisions a day but lately, I feel like I'm hiding from making any...but I've reached a point where I can't really hide any longer.
:: Lately, I've had to look at my life and make some game changing calls. I've said no to some big and small things and it’s been hard. I’ve lost sleep and cried buckets of tears and continually asked God about a million questions and begged for more clarity. Even still, I feel that I may be making the wrong decisions but I know God is faithful and His peace is a constant reminder that I am not alone for He will never leave us nor forsake us.
:: Lately, I've had to look at my life and make some game changing calls. I've said no to some big and small things and it’s been hard. I’ve lost sleep and cried buckets of tears and continually asked God about a million questions and begged for more clarity. Even still, I feel that I may be making the wrong decisions but I know God is faithful and His peace is a constant reminder that I am not alone for He will never leave us nor forsake us.
:: So here I am, sitting myself down to look back over the last 2 years of life, learning and making sense of the moments along the way and allowing those lessons to be a part of the process.
:: Life is crazy and if I’m being honest, I’d say that right now I just don’t feel the love and the passion the way I think you’re meant to. I am all too aware that life is always not about loving what you do and that no matter what, there is tremendous sacrifice. But that is the beauty of choice, as I weigh my options, I am wondering about the sacrifice and what it costs to follow God deeper...deeper into love and deeper into a life of missions. There are so many opportunities that lie ahead and I feel that these words can easily be twisted into sounding selfish and narrow minded. I know that no matter how much we sacrifice, we will be met with blessing. I know the right answers but I also know how freeing it is to arrive at a place where you can be confident in what you love and what you don’t because when we keep doing something because we should love it, we set ourselves up for a lot of pain.
:: I like how Shauna Niequist puts it when speaking of a similar season, “I’ve struggled under work that wasn’t right for me but I kept going because it was the plan. Feel free to change the plan. I’ve stayed with things that I didn’t love because it seemed like I should have loved them. Pay attention to what you love, not to what you should love.”
:: There’ will always be pressure and opinion about what others think your life should look like. Many of them come from people whose words hold weight and whose opinions matter and it’s worth taking the time to listen to them. It’s worth taking time to listen to the lessons of your life and to listen to your calling. It’s worth taking time to listen to your family and community. But at the end of the day, you must make your own choice, unapologetically. I don’t want to shut the door on something good but I don’t want to ignore the other side of the equation either. I want to make choices that lead me deeper into the heart of my Savior, not choices that will take me further and further from the life I want to embrace.
:: There’ will always be pressure and opinion about what others think your life should look like. Many of them come from people whose words hold weight and whose opinions matter and it’s worth taking the time to listen to them. It’s worth taking time to listen to the lessons of your life and to listen to your calling. It’s worth taking time to listen to your family and community. But at the end of the day, you must make your own choice, unapologetically. I don’t want to shut the door on something good but I don’t want to ignore the other side of the equation either. I want to make choices that lead me deeper into the heart of my Savior, not choices that will take me further and further from the life I want to embrace.
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