When I think of a season of being, I always come back here. There is a peace about this place, a sweet precious ambience where I just write to express myself, and to make Jesus known. As the seasons have shifted, I have moved to more commercial writing, written workbooks that have impacted hundreds of girls. I was always running on this timeline, wanting to have achieved so much especially after being a stay-at-home mum whose heart beat for many things, for a long time.
I have loved writing the books, facilitating programs, meeting hundreds of girls, preparing them for puberty, interacting with their mums, and seeing the seed grow in the hands of the Lord. As 2022 came to an end, I sensed a shift, but it was a shift without a concrete plan. What we could call a walk of faith. It seemed so familiar, reminded me of the season when we moved to Mombasa. We didn’t really have a concrete plan, but God unfolded it in His time.
Walking by faith needs a degree of inner silence for you to hear God’s voice amidst the noise. It also need you to have a tent mentality and heart posture in a world that is fuelled by an illusion of permanence and progress.
2023 has began with a mandatory silence in the refining fire , and the first thing that has been combusted is my lists and timelines. For a minute there, I felt lost. The flurry of the busy nature of my life had become a hiding place, a place where I sought solace. The hats that I wore, became labels of identity. When I sat for two weeks without them, I saw myself for who I am. What I struggled more with is how to just be. How to connect with the present moment, to live fully here and now. To not feel like I have to achieve anything in the future and be content with that. To feel content with a seeming lack of progress. To enjoy the ebbs and flows of life even when it feels like I am running on a treadmill. To take off the pressure from progress, and to enjoy and savour the grace in the present.
There in the stillness was such clarity, peace, hope and love. Glimpses of bountiful joy.
The path of surrender is one of obedience, even when it doesn’t fit in to the mould that we have imagined it to be. Just looking at the life of Jonah, reveals that God’s way is always better.
2023 is where I lay it down. You are all I am chasing now. This is my surrender. No lists, no timelines, no cemented plans, Just a heart surrendered in the hands of a loving Father.
I’d love to hear what God is teaching you, what your surrender looks like.
Bibi2Be 