What if YOU stopped...everything?
Bobbie went from full hustle to full halt and discovered what God can do in a valley season.
It has been a long time coming to get to interview my friend, Bobbie for the
Hope Layer Podcast.
You sure can enjoy the cliff notes version of our conversation here, as well as the powerful pictures of Bobbie that help you see what she saw. But, I promise, if you listen to our chat on
The Hope Layer Podcast, you won't be disappointed!
(This blog post is sort of the "cliff notes" of our chat, and of course, the powerful pictures that go right along with it)
Enjoy! I know you will!
Bobbie started off our conversation with something like this...
It was the chilly fall months of 2020. My husband and I go away every November to Missouri so he can hunt. Typically, while he's in the woods I plant myself at the desk and knock out content creation, revamp my website, dream up new business goals, drink plenty of caffeine, and...
But not this time (except for the caffeine).
Even as we led up to our annual trip I knew there were a list of things I could work on, but nothing felt just right. The same thought kept coming back to me, just sit... just be still. Ultimately I heard God whispering very clearly to my heart and He was saying s-l-o-w down.
Ugh, the thoughts of my flesh were not a whisper - they were loud and clear - "God I don’t like slow and You know it!" I value efficiency and productivity, and this was the ultimate time to excel at those things. But I could recognize, even in that tension, that despite all of my efforts I was not bearing the fruit you’d expect from all the time and work I had putting in for the past year. So....
I sat with God. I sat quietly. I prayed. I read my Bible. I journaled.
For four days I did this - on repeat.
While this was not natural for me, nothing else felt right.
Through all this time God continued to press upon me to "slow down".
I came back to PA with these "slow down" words, trying to figure out how to be obedient, and I did "ok" at it. At about the same time, you (Jen) opened up registration for
the Restorable Retreat., and
I knew I was supposed to go. I had a strong feeling about it and no hesitation whatsoever. But I really had no idea why! This too became a step of obedience, like; "ok God I’ll sign up and figure out the reason later".
I spent parts of January journaling and praying over Psalm 23 as you (Jen) had directed us participants to do. I hoped that this would shed light on the reason I was really being called to attend the retreat. My surface level thoughts all came back to things like; navigating work and family life and the difficulties that go along with a season where ambition is coupled with exhaustion from parenting littles.
But God kept taking me to much
deeper places as I journaled... and it really
caught me off guard.
You should understand a bit of my back story to make sense of the rest as it unfolds... about eight years earlier, I went through a divorce and custody battle, which ultimately spanned the course of many years. I’ll try to put it in a nutshell and say, although it was my doing to end the marriage, it was horrible and grueling and played out in ways I never could have imagined. I lost most of my family - the hardest of that was losing the relationship with my dad... and I lost almost all of my friends who had been like sisters to me. On top of all of that, I went from being a stay at home mom to having weekend custody of my son.
And it absolutely wrecked me.
I eventually remarried, had two more children, began to make a few new friends and create a new life
BUT I still felt a deep sense of loneliness and abandonment that ate me to the core. Most of the time I just kept it all pushed down and ignored it the best I could.
It was too much to process, and I couldn’t even imagine attempting to work through it.
But God... right?
But God is such a good and loving God. He knew I needed to walk
through
this. He knew that you, Jen, and your
Restorable Retreat were going to be the catalyst for my healing.
These things were unfolding, and at the time, I was still kind of confused by all that was coming to the surface - namely things about my dad. But with the busyness of daily life I couldn't fully sit with it, and I would wonder what God had up His sleeve for my time at the retreat where I would finally be able to focus.
Then... wouldn’t you know it - God was about to give me alllll the time I needed as He brought my life to an interesting halt. The week before the Retreat, my then, five year old son, broke his foot in a sledding accident, and there I was with this kiddo who couldn’t walk to do anything or go anywhere (for 8 weeks!). He was in Kindergarten and needed to continue to learn, but could no longer even get to the bathroom (or the kitchen table, or bed, or anywhere else!) without me carrying him! All this while managing his pain and really scarred emotions (not to mention, all of the other responsibilities of life that still needed to be done). That might not sound like a halt - because it sounds like more work - but it was both.
Now, THIS really woke me up and got my attention. It forced me into a full stop in so many other ways.
I was so torn as to whether or not I should attend the Retreat now with my son's injury, but my husband was so supportive and still felt I should go. And, Jen, you said something to the effect that of course it was up to me, yet, it may be a good idea to have this soul care time before I step into the next eight weeks as caregiver. So, I decided to come, albeit, apprehensively, but now I can say that I am SO glad that I did.
The Retreat experience was so multi-faceted. It’s hard to describe how you can feel so well-taken care of in so many ways yet be deeply struggling to face your IT.
I not only faced "it", but I began to walk through "it" with gentle shepherding.
Jen spoke God’s truth to each of us. Words that we so desperately needed to hear... needed to believe. It helped having open conversations, knowing we weren’t alone. It helped raising up our voices to sing in praise and worship. It helped to think and journal in a well-thought out guided way.
And the junkyard... ohhh, the junkyard! It was an experience that I did not expect at all!
Honestly, I thought I was going to find a cute little truck from the 1950’s. Nothing too beaten or broken... something that would make for a good picture and a nice connection to my past, as I grew up in a “car family” surrounded by various antique vehicles over the years. I wonder how many times God lovingly smirks at my naivety.
As I walked through the rows of broken down this and that's, I thought to myself - "am I going to know when I find it? What if I don’t find anything? What if there’s nothing here for me?"
But, it didn’t take long... and here it was staring at me in all of it’s rusty giant glory. A big ol’ work truck with tool boxes and a huge bed for hauling heavy loads.
It was speaking right to me.
As I stayed there, my sadness grew while so many emotions and thoughts rushed in. I texted you, and then pulled out my notebook and began to scribble through my tears.
Maybe I was writing to the ol' truck, likely to myself - kind of both...
"You worked so hard to help, to serve, to please so many people, yet here you sit - abandoned... walked away
from.... I bet there are still tools in your boxes, still ready to serve... but the longer you sat in abandonment the harder it became to function, to imagine serving anyone again. You’d try though, you’d keep pushing, keep carrying the weight, keep taking care of everyone until you physically couldn’t anymore. All while remembering what it feels like to be abandoned. Wondering when you’ll be left again. I wonder why they left you here?"
My notes continued as I tried to process all of these thoughts but also reflect them against what you, Jen, had poured into us the night before. It was a mess of emotions that only got deeper when you showed up to photograph me with my trusty work-truck.
You had me get close to it to snap some shots, then asked me to look inside as you took some more.
And I couldn’t believe my eyes... there inside this truck - randomly - sat a croquet set. It would mean nothing to anyone else, but to me it was a very clear sign!
You see, I associate croquet with childhood cookouts and parties. My dad and stepmother’s side of the family would play this whenever we got together and I always loved it. It’s not something you see people doing often! So, this "random" croquet set in an ol' work truck was like a nod from God saying if you weren’t completely sure about all of this - here’s your sign!I still get goosebumps when I think about it.
I still get goosebumps when I think about it...
Later that afternoon, we all sat around the dining room table of the B&B painting signs. I cherish my sign, it says; ‘there’s always hope’.
I can still see my hand shaking as I was painting my sign and telling my junkyard story to our group. It was so powerful to me.
As I mentioned, this weekend became a catalyst for my healing, and I’m not sure where I’d be now had I
not attended.
To learn more about the Restorable Retreat,
CLICK HERE
When I returned home I found myself literally stopping a long list of things as I felt God leading me.
Ultimately, He was leading me to forgive my family and my dad. He was leading me to forgive, because of course I played my part in how things had happened.
I assumed that “stop” would last just eight weeks while my son recovered from his injury. I thought that would be long enough. I would come back to the full swing of things again, refreshed, or reset, or something.
Again God smiles. But the “stopping” actually lasted a year!
I literally stopped...
• working - both at organizing & coaching... (it was not easy)
• posting and promoting my business... really I stopped social media altogether... I just
“disappeared” (this wasn’t as hard as I expected, it was actually refreshing)
• striving to show up the way I thought the world expected me to (this has taken a lot of
effort)
• holding grudges and embraced forgiveness (only thanks to God’s hand in my life)
• worrying about things & people beyond my control (this is a daily work in progress)
• micro-managing (some areas have been easier than others)
• worrying about the weeds (literally & metaphorically)
• holding unrealistic expectations for my season of life (this requires frequent reminders to
my overachieving-self)
• running ahead of God (where did I think I was going without Him anyway)
It’s easy to write that list now. It was not easy to acknowledge those things in the moment. It
was even harder to be obedient and follow through with what I finally acknowledged as
necessary. Only with and through God did I do it. I wish I could say this is where life got easier
and I learned all my lessons quickly. I wish. But that’s not how it played out.
Even in the stopping, that year became quite the downward spiral.
My son’s foot (thank God) healed fully, but he continued having emotional issues that required a lot of attention. This is a story in itself so I’ll leave it at that. Months later, by October I was in full surrender - I just started waking up saying, "OK God - what do YOU want me to do today?"
There had also been a strong calling on my heart to come to a place of forgiveness with my dad.
The emotional toll of that alone wore on me through the year as it was something I continued to
work on internally because I knew to my core that God was laying it on my heart to heal. I even bought him a Restorable mug at the retreat and wrote (re-wrote and wrote again) to him a long letter, but never had a chance to deliver it. It was interesting, the various events that kept me from visiting him each time I had planned to. My dad then became very ill in November and we lost him in mid-December.
With so many ups and downs that year, I came into a crescendo where I was barely functioning. Had I not "stopped"... well, I can’t imagine how much worse I would have been - I would have had no hope.
January 2022
I wanted so badly to save that truck from the junkyard. I wanted to haul it home. I felt that someone needed to save it. Someone needed to love it again. I even got up the nerve one
day to talk to my husband about bringing it home to salvage!
But, I had it wrong -
I thought I needed to be the Restorer. When in fact, (I found in time) that there’s really only one true Restorer. God is the only One who can make all things new again.
Remember my sign I mentioned - your tag line - “There Is Always Hope”? Well, there really is, and
I’m so grateful for your sharing it. God is a loving and awesome God. He will use all of our pain for good.
I definitely had a painful year, but He used every tear, every sleepless night, every bit of confusion and sadness. I can honestly say that I am thankful for it. I learned to lean on God... to the point of complete surrender.
Through my year that started with the idea of "slow" and moved to a full "stop", I began to move into a place of "what do I do now?"
The discomfort of not knowing what He wanted me to do (but knowing it wasn’t what I had been doing) ultimately created a spirit of obedience, which required surrender, which allowed me to be led, which required me to be still and rest in/with/through Jesus.
That surrender, obedience and following transformed me. He transformed me. God used it all to change me from the inside out. He drew me close through it all. Ultimately, He taught me how to be led. And I believe now He wants me to teach others.
So, here’s the happy ending we’re all waiting on...
As the dust settled (so to speak) in January ’22 He replaced all of the sadness, confusion and anxiety with His PEACE. Just like that.
God’s peace is like nothing you can get from this world. It is incredible and almost unbelievably confusing - because it doesn’t seem possible to go from all of that chaos to a calm, centered and happy heart. But I did. Because God loves me and He loves you too. He loves you that much
and more, more than we could ever fathom!!
How about you?
Are you feeling nudges to slow down, pause, rest, step back, learn to say "no", or completely STOP?
If so, I'd love for you to share it with me. You can email me at Jen@layeredphotography.com.
Thank you so much for walking with me here.
If you want to hear more from Bobbie's heart, or attend one of her winter 2024 gatherings, then
CLICK HERE,
and don't forget to sign up to receive her emails (& mine!).
If you would like to receive life coaching from either one of us, then please email Jen at Jen@layeredphotoraphy.com or Bobbie at Hello@bobbiedull.com
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