The past month has been a blur. A sweet blur. Kind of breathless. A tight rope of being so completely tired and so completely at rest. Have you ever stood there on that tightrope? The one that hangs over sheer exhaustion and pure joy. It’s the one that you walk for the first few months of having a new baby. Never sleeping but loving deeper than you ever thought possible. It’s the one I’m walking on right now in my first semester of graduate school. It’s the one you might be walking right now, too.
I doubted myself at least 10 times a day for the first two weeks. Did I hear God right? Is this really His plan for me? I miss Jubilee while I’m at school. I have so much to do. I stayed up until 3am to finish a document for the Lily and The Sparrow. I woke up at 6 to snuggle with Jubilee when she woke up crying. I have 3 homework assignments due. I need to work on my book. Can I really do this?
The answer is deep and soothing, like the feeling of cool water on your skin when you plunge into the river. I think about the rope swing back in the woods at the river landing by my Mama’s house and the feeling I used to feel every summer when I would swing far and wide before letting go and plunging deep. Relief from Summer’s heat, cool and calm, would surround me for a few seconds before I made my way to the surface and took a deep breath of air. God’s voice is like that. “No, baby.” He said to me. “You can’t do it in your own strength. But with Me, you can do all things.”
I love God’s timing. He told me to write a book while I was in Peru. I started writing. He gave me the title. He gave me the mission. He gave me the idea. And so I started writing the “Yes, You Can!” Devotion Book based on the verse in Philippians 4:13 that tells us that we can do all things through Christ. The theme of my book is daily encouragement for girls and women who dare to place their destiny in God’s hands and trust Him to write their stories.
And so every time I doubt, He reminds me of the book that I’m writing. I’m 1/3 of the way through. Each page is filled with encouragement and scriptures that prove that actually, Yes, You Can trust Jesus with everything because His plans for you are so good. And I’m writing to myself more than anyone else. I’m writing a book and living it out. Doubting myself and constantly remembering that God lives in me. And if He can do it, I can do it!
I drove to Atlanta last week to take the GACE test for Spanish. I was tired. I was overwhelmed. I was crazy. And I took the test and asked God to shine through me, even now. I finished the test and walked out of the double doors of the building and it was snowing. The milky gray sky opened up above me and snow flakes began to fall all around me and I stopped in the middle of a flurry of snow that whipped my hair and stung my cheeks. And I grinned at the sweet gift from my Creator. A reminder for me that He was with me, that I was walking in the path that He created for me, that when I am in my weakest moment, He is my strength.
“Just take the next step, love.” God whispered into my heart.
Take the next step.
When you can’t see the future and you don’t understand the past and all you can do is trust that God has a plan. Take that next step. Take it when you feel like it and when you don’t. Keep going. Don’t give up. He is with you.
Dreams can be daunting. They can be terrifying. We can give up before we ever begin because we doubt ourselves. But with God, our dreams can become reality. He can use us to change the world. To shine His light in every arena, in the church, in the education system, in the marketplace, in the sports industry. If we are literally the hands and feet of Jesus on this Earth, there is nothing that we cannot do.
So can I be a good wife and a mother while co-directing The Lily and The Sparrow with my husband and also going to graduate school? Can I be a Pastor’s wife and help my husband lead the youth group? Can I be a good friend, daughter, and sister? In my own strength, probably not. But with Jesus, I can do everything that I feel called to in this season of my life, and I can do it all well and in a way that brings honor to God. Because in my weakness, He is strong.
What is God calling you to do in this season, dear one? Take the next step that He is leading you to take even when you don’t understand. He is working all things together for your good. He is preparing a way for you. He is with you.
With messy hair and wild grace,
Ellyn
