Waves and Life
Emotions come in waves. At least that’s what all the counselors explained to me growing up.
Today, I have had waves of missing life.
I really really love the life I have.
I also really love the season we are in right now. I love my people I am with. I love where I am. I love what I get to do. I love the unrushed time I have. I love the release of pressure. I love seeing the Lord work in incredible ways in so many places.
But like most of us, I just miss life. The specific time I had. The routines. The events. The traveling. The people. The things we took for granted like Hobby Lobby trips and Bible studies. Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.
I am an introvert who fiercely loves her people and an enneagram 2 who paralyzingly fears being a burden, being in the way and making life hard.
In this season, in this momentary change of lifestyle, we cannot do this alone. Satan wants us to. Satan wants us to isolate ourselves. He wants us to think we can handle this. Newsflash: we cannot. You will not.
There is so much in “life as I knew it” I equated to my worth. It is a reality check every day of this pause. A reality check that often feels like an identity crisis. I miss life. But what will happen if I am not careful, what will happen if we isolate, if we give in, if we look back and around and do not look up... we will miss it all. We will miss the fact that this IS life. Jesus came to give us abundant life and that is now. For us, it always has been now. It is IN this pause. It is IN our people. This season is not stopping life, it is stopping the busyness, the crowd, the rush.
The rush will resume. And if we are not careful, we will have missed all the beauty The Lord has for us in it. We will have missed the abundance of Glory in the waiting. The fruit being planted in this season will root and produce on the other side. Inevitably.
Do not come to the other side with untilled soil. Without fruit. Or worst, with bad fruit. With no evidence of Christ in this season. He is right here. He has something for you. Miss what was. But do not miss what is. And do not lose sight on all that is to come. The rush will resume, what will you grow in this pause for when it does?
——————————————
“I am The True Vine, and My Father is The Gardener. Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of The Word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in Me and My Words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My Disciples.” John 15:1-8
