Gently Lead

I have been ignoring some inner movements and promptings of the Spirit. My quiet, still space has been filled with blogging, class work, reading, and WWKids’ work. I have been avoiding this silent time and filling it with “good things.”

Why?
Why do I refuse to be still?
What am I avoiding?

In the midst of this season of avoidance I discovered that I have been afraid and angry. I’ve been avoiding facing some painful things:
My friend’s progressing illness
My elderly parents’ final season of life
My husband’s increasingly demanding job

After months of avoidance, the Spirit ever so gently broke through my barriers and encouraged me to engage this part of my journey and no longer avoid.

This “conversion” moment went something like this:
SD: Where does God fit in to these situations?
LT: I haven’t let him in
SD: Why?
LT: I don’t want to go there
SD: Why?
LT: I don’t want to hurt that much
SD: Aren’t you already hurting?
LT: Yes, I’m hurting while I try not to hurt
SD: What if I went with you to that place? I’ll hold you and cry with you?
LT: I don’t want to cry.
SD: But you already are. Let me hold you, go with you. If you can’t make it I’ll carry you.
LT: OK, but I don’t know how to start.

SD: via Henri Nouwen:. . . . “keep your eyes on Him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak and who is rejected with the rejected. That one, Jesus, is the source of all peace.

Where is his peace to be found? In weakness. Few people are telling us this truth, but there is peace to be found in our own weakness, in those places of our heart where we feel most broken, most insecure, most in agony, most afraid. In our weakness we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden.

Jesus, teach me to rely on you, on my heavenly Father and on the Holy Spirit rather than my own self-sufficiency.