It has taken me a few weeks to put my finger on it, but I'm noticing yet another transition to my life here. A transition concerning my faith, my life, my work.
For the last several years of my life, God has placed me in positions where my focus was sharing and talking about Him - about my relationship with God, your relationship with God, and relationships with God in general. His desire was for my life to match up with my talk most certainly, and since ministry often creates the "life in a fishbowl" phenomenon, there is even some built in accountability to walk out your talk. But you spend a lot of time talking. Teaching, preaching, mentoring, sharing, writing, and on and on. I would say I spent as much time talking as I did walking...and sometimes, sadly, more.
The thing is...I don't do half as much talking anymore. But I have to do a lot of walking. I mean 24/7 in-your-face walking out my faith or lack of faith every single day with 16 little eyeballs and ears picking up on every last thing. Instead of spending hours in a my office preparing a 30-minute lesson about God's love, I've moved into a position where it is now my role to take those same hours and breathe out God's love every minute - in the way I respond to questions, in the way I handle frustration, in the way I speak to my husband, in the way I deal discipline or motivate...there just aren't as many words. I am in no way proposing that one way of life is easier than the other as they both present their own challenges and are both crucial to a life of faith, but just that I have observed the change. And amidst the change, I have learned to lean on Christ for His strength and love in new ways. And I have learned in even larger ways than before that it is not about me...and that the only effective love is the love He pours out.
I still get to talk. Like my nightly conversations about God that our little 6-year-old initiates before she falls asleep. And the windows of opportunity I am able to take with the older girls to break through the walls and reach their heart with Truth. But in the meantime, I am walking. And sometimes stumbling along. They say life lessons oftentimes need to be caught rather than taught and so this walking must be so crucial in what it really means to be a parent - whatever kind of parent you might be.
For the last several years of my life, God has placed me in positions where my focus was sharing and talking about Him - about my relationship with God, your relationship with God, and relationships with God in general. His desire was for my life to match up with my talk most certainly, and since ministry often creates the "life in a fishbowl" phenomenon, there is even some built in accountability to walk out your talk. But you spend a lot of time talking. Teaching, preaching, mentoring, sharing, writing, and on and on. I would say I spent as much time talking as I did walking...and sometimes, sadly, more.
The thing is...I don't do half as much talking anymore. But I have to do a lot of walking. I mean 24/7 in-your-face walking out my faith or lack of faith every single day with 16 little eyeballs and ears picking up on every last thing. Instead of spending hours in a my office preparing a 30-minute lesson about God's love, I've moved into a position where it is now my role to take those same hours and breathe out God's love every minute - in the way I respond to questions, in the way I handle frustration, in the way I speak to my husband, in the way I deal discipline or motivate...there just aren't as many words. I am in no way proposing that one way of life is easier than the other as they both present their own challenges and are both crucial to a life of faith, but just that I have observed the change. And amidst the change, I have learned to lean on Christ for His strength and love in new ways. And I have learned in even larger ways than before that it is not about me...and that the only effective love is the love He pours out.
I still get to talk. Like my nightly conversations about God that our little 6-year-old initiates before she falls asleep. And the windows of opportunity I am able to take with the older girls to break through the walls and reach their heart with Truth. But in the meantime, I am walking. And sometimes stumbling along. They say life lessons oftentimes need to be caught rather than taught and so this walking must be so crucial in what it really means to be a parent - whatever kind of parent you might be.
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