Ok so I had a baby less than 3 months ago. My life isn’t “calm” by any stretch.
However, I think I am experiencing a spiritual calm. It’s a bit confusing. Especially since most of my existence is always “What am I supposed to do with my life? God, what do you want me to do with my life?” crises. I feel like I usually am perpetually torn between wanting two disparate things.
But right before baby Ruth was born I decided to quit my job so I could be a full-time mom. Getting to that decision point was challenging — I have always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but would it be feasible? (Let alone possible given my infertility… but that’s a subject for like 100kajillion other posts I’ve written). But I made the decision and am living with it.
And “living with” this decision has been such a GREAT BLESSING!
I had hoped it would be. But it really has. And no, not just because I get to focus on my family and myself, but because I appear to have stumbled into a spiritual calmness I didn’t know I could experience.
It’s taken a few weeks for me to pinpoint what this is.
I was like “No, it’s not a spiritual dryness” –though I still have major elements of that since I’m still not where I used to be in my spiritual-gung-ho-ness (a fear of groups of people hasn’t allowed me to brave in-person mass again which I think would go a long way to help me end the drought). But if it isn’t dryness what is this?
Turns out it is calm. It’s just a stillness of heart that I can feel on each breath. It’s a quiet in my mind of not constantly doubting if I am on God’s path for my life.
And it’s weird.
But a good weird.
A weird like I was supposed to have fully trusted God and figured this out years ago. (Though I do also trust that He kept me where I was for His purpose and reasons and gave me this all in His time.)
If you could have been inside my head at any point for the last 37 years but then stepped away for a few months and then decided to check back in you’d expect nothing to have changed — but if you got back in there and looked around you wouldn’t recognize the place. I don’t blame you; I don’t recognize it either.
I’m not trying to claim that all my problems are solved or to come across that my life is now impossibly lofty picture-perfect. But for this moment right now where God has me is exactly where I know He wants me to be. And it is AMAZING to feel “nothing” — no stress or worry about my path; no spiritual ambivalence; no lack of trust; no doubt.
I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses. I know this spiritual calm feeling will not last forever. But I do know that it is a blessing and I THANK GOD for this moment of calmness; this reassurance that I have made the decisions He asked me to make. He has given me this gift and it is a beautiful thing. How precious I must be in His eyes! It makes my heart feel like bursting if I think about it for too long!
And so I leave you with this thought “from the other side”: If you are praying and uncertain and working on discerning God’s path for your life just continue to pray (Luke 11:5-13) and to trust and to hope and just do your best to make the next best decision that you think God is asking you to make. It may take a very long time to get to where you want to be but persist in faith that He loves you and wants what is best for you. You will get to where you should be all in God’s time (you may not get to where you think you want to be, but if you get to where God wants you to be how much more blessed your life will be!)
…Now to wait for my sleeping baby to wake up from her nap to end this physical calmness I’ve been gifted in order to write this (which I’m sure will be 2 seconds from now). …yep, it was 2 seconds…
Give God Your Yes 