Pages

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Weeding and Pruning

Over the course of the year I have felt like God has been teaching me about rest.  I mean, when we started 2014 and I asked him what my word for the year was, that’s what I felt like he gave me.  Toward the beginning, he showed me that I am allowed to rest.  I took a month of from the ministries I am involved in.  Nothing fell apart.  I mean, there were a few things that needed to be adjusted and fixed when I came back, but nothing too drastic. 

During the summer, I feel like God was showing me that I can find moments of rest in the craziness.  And also that it’s ok to be protective of those moments.  He also showed me why rest is so important.  It’s like; I tried to love people out of my own strength.  I tried to make myself be there for them, and take care of them while I myself was falling apart at the seams.  I missed things then.  I was so busy trying to hold myself together so I could take care of them that I missed a lot of opportunities to be there for my friends.

For the last month I have felt like September 1st was going to mark the beginning of a new lesson in my life.  So far that has proven to be true.  About a week ago I felt like God gave me a heads up that this was going to be a season of weeding and pruning in my life.  God is going to pull up those things in my heart that don’t need to be there so he can plant good things.  And he is going to prune the areas of my life that are producing fruit so that they will produce a bigger harvest.  Since seeing that, I have had some mild anxiety about this new lesson.  I feel like it’s going to hurt.  I had no idea how badly.

I have felt like my soul has been in chaos recently.  Like, every few days I feel like my soul is just getting the shit kicked out of it.  You know that feeling that you get when you are somewhere you are unfamiliar with, and then you get separated from the people you are with?  That panic and fear that just consumes all of you?  That is what I feel deep in the core of who I am.  I lose sight of myself.  

Tonight, I was thinking about a lot of things and nothing in particular when I felt the tug on my heart that God wanted to tell me something.  So, I asked him to speak up.  “Kate, there are a lot of things from your past that we need to deal with.”  That’s what I heard.  I have always thought that I was over most of my history and had moved on.  Apparently I was wrong.  So, it looks like I’m in for a painful couple of months.  I know in the end it will be good.  I am just praying for strength and peace in the meantime.

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  Philippians 1:6