It would be nice to not fight each season, thinking that I need to constantly adjust to achieve some sort of “correct” balance. What if I could just learn to be in the here and now, and observe life lessons to receive wisdom for my future various seasons?

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

After all, maybe neither kind of season is wrong or right... or better... or worse. They're just different, and maybe we actually need both. Plus, I really like the variety that seasons offer anyway.

Interestingly enough, just a couple of weeks into this planned pause, our world was hit with a pandemic that has created a culture of slow, for so many of us. The coronavirus. A time where, unless you are sort of on the front lines of this battle, then you are forced into a season where you can’t go go go quite as much. So, needless to say this “corona-cation” has sort of confirmed my slow season, and even extended it.

 

For the most part, I really am ok with it. I think, in part because I like to be at home, and I do enjoy my kids! But, also because I kind of have this tension inside of me, a bit of a concern I guess. I sort of feel like our world, and our culture, or maybe just myself… we are just kind of, full. We are full of stimulation, full of opportunities, we are full of alot of GOOD things… but in the end, I wonder, are we just full? Kind of like, bloated? We love the feelings associated with accomplishing, doing, and achieving. We love to dream, to start new things, and be inspired.. And I think we should. But do we take enough time to pause, to savor and digest any of that good stuff when we so quickly bite into the next good thing?  

This concern is part of what has led me to do a simple practice that I recommend to my listeners at the end of each Hope Layer Podcast episode. It is a lite encouragement to “write down one thing that you received before the noise of this life chokes it out. A quiet moment to take it to heart and receive from it before you walk away from it”. I really value these little moments, but, this time because of my recent full season, I am taking more than just a 5 minute pause to reflect and take note. I planned for a month of rest. A season for listening and receiving treasures from what God had just done in me, through me, and around me. That planned month has now turned into two, it just wasn’t time yet. So, for 2 months now I have been writing things down as I reflect on all that the recent full season had to offer. 

I picked up this book to encourage me towards gratitude while intentionally choosing rest, and I found it very cool when I discovered some of her thoughts on rest in it. I think that “rest” is part of her gratitude book because of her choosing to PAUSE throughout her day to note what she feels thankful for. She is soaking in her gratitude feelings before rushing onto the next thing. Here is an observation she makes from another author. Voskamp quotes Mark Buchanan from his book, “The rest of God, restoring your soul by restoring your sabbath”. He says, “Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing… Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away”.  

Ann goes on to say, “haste makes waste”.  

That is affirming for me to hear right now. So good. I don’t want to miss a thousand things because I rushed too quickly onto the next thing.

And today, I’m gonna start with the most basic, yet most complex gift.  

Trust.  

Well, I suppose I am also sharing the ideas of rest and seasons too.. But trust is under all of it, and trust was what led me to my recent full season, and trust is what is allowing me to have a rest season right now.

As you might know, I wrestled for almost a year with this idea of turning Restorable into a weekend retreat.  It wasn’t until about 6 months before the actual retreat, that I finally gave in. I surrendered. I decided that this idea was in fact, not my own. This was God’s idea, and since I know that God is real, that He loves me and has been my source of strength and help… well... then I could trust it. I could trust Him.  

That turn towards trust, towards faith and even obedience was something that I was slowly building up to, and I sure do continue to struggle with it and grow into it. But, there was a day when a significant turn towards trust happened inside of me in early October 2019. It was the day that I wrote the deposit check for booking a whole beautiful bed and breakfast for two nights in late February. I wrote the check not having any idea if I was going to be there alone for a weekend, or if God was going to fill the old stone home with other women. I had no idea if that deposit money that was intended to be used for photography needs was going to be refunded. And crazy as it might sound (to me), in that moment, it finally didn’t matter. I just knew that I was supposed to commit to an unknown.

Writing that check actually ended up feeling like freedom. I ended the wrestling over whether or not I should commit and discovered how this could further open my heart up to trust. This was supernatural. Not normal. Not Jen’s typical, but it felt good.

I felt this unfamiliar freedom throughout the coming months of working on this project. I was doing something hard, vulnerable and out of my ordinary. It was bigger than me and I could only do this with prayer support and constant reminders that “He who began this good work in me, would be faithful to complete it”... almost daily those words would ring in my ears. Daily I would feel reminders that this thing, this retreat was His… His… and I could trust Him. Those words and the words prayed to God by a precious prayer team truly became the power source that kept me going. I was able to keep digging deep to discover what God wanted me to see in my restorable soul.  

He kept leading me one small lit step at a time, and I am so glad that I was able to trust Him. That trust gave me the opportunity to experience this retreat and this whole restorable project, and it ended up to be SO good. It was rich and full of treasures that I didn’t know He would have for me and eleven other women.

Together we stepped into an unknown. Together we let God lead us, and together we were loved.

But, it all had to begin with what felt like a risky step of faith… a believing that God was, in fact, desiring to use what He gave me. It was a choice to stop wrestling over whether or not I was going to like what God had for me in this “too big” thing. And it was from that one “yes”, that so many lessons and sweet gifts would come.
 

So, I am sharing this with you here, because I know that I am not alone. There are others who are questioning God’s direction for their current season or possibly their next season. I mean, of course there are… we are in the middle of a global pandemic! So many of us are in a season of “not normal”. Our lives have literally taken a sudden massive shift outside of our control and we aren’t sure what or when the next shift will be, so of course we will have moments of questioning God’s leading and purpose in our lives.  

Or maybe you too have felt a quiet nudge inside of you. A nudge that God might be dreaming bigger things for you then you are willing to admit? Could He possibly be dreaming something beautiful for you in the thick of something hard? Could He maybe be wanting to create beauty from your ashes and purpose out of your pain? Maybe you are scared of unknown results? You know that God is real and you say that He is good, but you too find it hard to live like you believe that. Do you think that He will sustain you, or abandon you? Do you trust Him?

Is it possible that this season is pulling you out of an intense season and into a season for rest and reflection… is that good for you, or does it feel unsettling? Or maybe, you're in a season that is sort of amping up the intensity and you don’t know how you will ever be able to continue at this full steam ahead pace? Can you trust Him as your seasons shift and change?

As I am slowly emerging out of my “rest” season now and sharing my discoveries here with you, I hope that you too will discover treasures for your own life from my choice to say “yes” to the Restorable Retreat. I hope that you will not only get to hear some of the things that I learned through this process, but also get to hear some of the goodness from some of the women who joined me at the retreat. I want you to get to imagine being on the retreat, eating the delicious food and walking through the junkyard with us. I want to invite you to imagine that you were there too, and in so doing, that you might also gain something for your restorable heart from our time away together.

Friend, my hope is that together we will learn to trust the One who created seasons for us. That we will embrace the full seasons and discover treasures in them.  That we will begin to know more deeply how our full seasons can be filled with treasures, purpose and meaning and how they can be so fruitful. But ALSO the seasons of rest, as they too have treasures, purpose, meaning and that rest also brings fruit! And I hope that as we grow to trust God, that we will continue to discover a grace that opens up a deep and beautiful layer of hope for our varied seasons.

As always...if reading is something that is hard for you to commit your time to, then you can listen to me read these posts for you on The Hope Layer Podcast.  You can subscribe on Itunes, spotify, stitcher...or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.  OR... look above here and click the button that simply says "Podcast"!  :)

If you want to be sure to not miss out on when I post the next episode/blog, then send me an email that simply says "subscribe" , and I will be sure to make sure that you receive my email newsletters.  These emails will notify you each time that a new hopeful talk is out!

Thank you for joining me here... it means so much to me!