August 2023 – She Speaks True Words

The other day, the girls helped me pull weeds from my backyard. The weeds stood behind a shed and around my air conditioner and had been long neglected since spring. Somehow, in ignoring them, I thought they just might wither away. It’s been a busy summer of travel and fun, so pruning and taking care of my yard was the least of my concerns. I’ve never had a green thumb and it was not in my interest to start.

Turns out, when you neglect weeds for too long, they begin to take over and grow out of control. Some of the weeds that grew had developed a thick root in the ground, making them difficult to cut down. I had to place all my weight into my pruning shears to cut the roots, attempting to yank them out of the ground. The roots currently still sit there, blazing in the 100-degree heat days later, waiting for me to come and prune them away.

I have come to realize that the weeds in my life are the same. The areas where I have let myself grow stagnant and comfortable, the shortcomings of how I show up in relationships, whether as a friend, daughter, mother or colleague, I know that I have my imperfections. It is up to me whether to prune and refine who I am and to seek growth, to step out in faith to make the decisions and accept the challenges I know are best for me, or if I should ignore my intuition and opportunities to grow within and become the best version of myself. Because of my need to stay where it feels safe, I have let my weeds grow a thick root for the sake of my own comfort, and in doing so I have lost touch of my own self and my growth. I have slowly been working at refining myself, more so in the past year than ever before.

I am grateful that it isn’t just up to me to refine myself, either. I am reminded of the scriptures that talk about remaining attached to the vine, aka God, because apart from him we cannot bear fruit on our own. The work we do on our own, apart from our faith, is superficial at best. As I look to plant my roots in fertile ground, I trust that God will allow me to bear fruit in my life, even when the idea of leaving my rocky and weedy soil for new ground feels scary. I know that God will refine me.

It is in the unknown and in the trusting that I know that God will be at work in me, that I will be refined as long as I remain attached to the vine. The pruning process is difficult, when you feel yourself needing to let go of things that are no longer helpful or serving you, but just like the satisfaction of pulling the weeds from my yard and making room for new growth, it is satisfying to let go and trust and make room for God to work in me.

This is my truth: God has chosen me to bear fruit that will last, but the soil in which I am planted is rocky ground. It’s time to take the leap that my heart is longing for, even though the refining process will continue to challenge me. I am trusting that this is the way to go, and I will remain in God’s love so that his joy may be in me and that my joy may be complete.

Refined. Whole. Made new. The best is yet to come.

When I think of the concept of fear, it feels a bit of a misnomer in my life. As someone who has dealt with anxiety the better part of adulthood, fear has felt like a familiar voice, lingering in the recesses of my brain in the form of overthinking and worry about the unknown. As a person who tends to be more driven by emotion, that means I have given far too much merit to my thoughts and feelings, ergo my fears.

A few years ago when Dave passed, my anxiety hit its peak and I knew I needed to take care of my mental health as much as my physical self. As I have taken the time to peel back the layers the past few years, digging through the murky sense of self that I couldn’t quite define, I have come to realize that a lot of who I am has been built by my thoughts and feelings and not on what I’ve known to be there the whole time. My sense of self has been built more on feelings and not always on what I know to be true, what feels right and what feels best for me.

Until recently, I hadn’t realized just how much my decisions – or lack thereof – I have struggled with not because of lack of belief in myself, but because of the constant thought loop in my brain that gets stuck in the familiar, the voice of what I had assumed was reason telling me to stay where it feels safe. It turns out, the voice I had rationalized as reason was a fear that if I were to listen to what I truly want, that it wouldn’t go the way I’d hoped it would. Or it would be harder than I had anticipated. While both thoughts may be true, because of the constant thought loop in my brain, those thoughts turned into irrational fears that have kept me from moving forward.

This summer I picked up doing regular yoga again. What I love about yoga is that it takes you back to yourself; you learn the art of mindfulness, of letting go of your thoughts, of returning to the breath. You learn how to listen, to be still and present in the moment, and how to trust in what you know rather than in the thought loop in your brain.

As I have continued to practice this art (because yoga and mindfulness truly are an art), I have become more fully aware of what I know to be true, what feels right and what feels best for me. My practice and my prayers have kept me grounded on days where I feel like my thoughts have wandered into places of overthinking. As I sit on the cusp of making some life changes, it’s easy to question what lies ahead. It’s easy to ask myself if this is what I really want because I know it’s going to be challenging.

Here’s the thing. Life is hard and I’ve endured a lot. I could choose to stay in survival mode and in this place where my life feels somewhat safe and relatively easy. That isn’t inherently wrong. But I know deep down that in doing so I would be denying a part of myself that I have uncovered, a part of myself that knows I am made for more. I know that some things in life are worth the risk because the reward will be even greater.

Listening to yourself is an ongoing process. It’s a conversation between yourself, your heart and God. For too long, I have invited too many people into the conversation rather than trusting in what I know to be true. Because somehow I have convinced myself that I need permission to go and do the things I want rather than just doing them. Now don’t get me wrong, getting feedback from others is invaluable, but when you trust that or feel the need to answer to that over what you know what is best, then it becomes a loss of self, a letting go of your boundaries for the sake of pleasing those around you.

So here I am, several layers into this onion of my new sense of self. I’ve shed some tears along the way because of the potency of losing ideas I thought mattered, but really were not what I wanted for myself. In yoga, they call this letting go of what is no longer serving you.

As I look ahead to the next few weeks, months and years, I know that I have some challenges, but they are filled with excitement and anticipation. I’m not ready to share the details yet, but soon my recent posts on change will begin to make sense. God makes beauty from ashes and soon enough he will take what I’ve been through, and I will be able to give back to and make a difference for others. My journey is far from complete, and God and his grace are with me every step of the way.

Month: August 2023

The one where the weeds burn.

The one where she talks about fear.