Autumn Updates & Change
On "circumstances becoming clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections..." (-Eugene Peterson)
A couple of weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon, in the middle of our regularly scheduled life, I took off in a flurry to get to the airport to catch a plane to Colorado. I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but through what I will only attribute to a series of Holy interventions and invitations, a door that had been locked to me suddenly swung wide and I hesitated only about 2 minutes before saying yes and re-organizing my life to make this surprise trip.
I told nearly no-one that I was going, (a thing I find myself doing more and more as I get older) and for the next 2 days I hung out in Jeanne Oliver’s personal studio making art with women, who until that moment, were all unknown to me. I try hard not to make a trip like this with my own agenda, but I did go holding some questions that I’d been praying God would speak to, during my time in Denver.
To say that I showed up on scene with a handful of hesitations and pauses is a simplified way of telling you that I came holding a lot, and eager to leave empty handed.
As I got my fingers slippery with plaster and painted with India ink, while sipping a Nespresso from a hand-thrown mug I listened intently for the answers I’d been asking for over the last many months.
In July while walking on the beach I’d told my husband that something was shifting. Change is in the air, I told him. I feel it. I couldn’t articulate all of the details to him then, because I didn’t know exactly what I meant by change—I only knew then—and even more now—that we are entering a new season on layers of levels, and that it’s time to clear “space” for the impending (unknown) changes. In mid-conversation with my trusted accountability group I used a specific word to describe what I felt like God was saying and it was such an old, underused word that I told them I felt weird even using it, but it was THE word that was coming to mind.
After returning from Denver, a friend returned a message I’d left for her about what I was feeling, and without me having used that same old word in my message, she used it in her message to me to describe what it seemed like I was saying to her.
Well, then.
I’ve made it my mission to listen and respond when God speaks. Having lived a good chunk of my life sidestepping a certain measure of obedience, I now know better than to resist responding to those Holy nudges, even when they seem somewhat unclear. What I know fully, is that obedience to God’s invitations rarely comes with a detailed outline of all of the steps involved, and that we do not actually need the details in order to say “yes”.
We want the details, but we don’t need them.
“The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped—it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.”
-Eugene Peterson
During her workshop, Jeanne repeatedly said that sometimes you have to build something before you know what it’s for, or what God will do with it. I had to laugh a little because Lord, if I don’t know that to be the truth.
Ten years ago I lived a full-throttle season of what Eugene Peterson is talking about here, when God invited me to make a retreat for 24 women in the woods in Ohio. I had no idea what I was doing, but only in doing the work did it become clear where God was taking me, and the women who were showing up for that retreat—and the retreats that followed.
While In Colorado, God confirmed what I was beginning to feel in my spirit—change is coming.
There are layers to what is unfolding, and I can’t wait to explore them with you in the coming weeks as I gather the threads and braid them into something that makes some kind of sense.
For now, I want to encourage you to listen to those holy nudges, to not be afraid of making a change, to say “yes” without needing all of the details of what your “yes” will mean, and to engage in the questions and hesitations, with God and with a trusted friend or community. I know this—God can be trusted with our secret dreams and our hidden longings. I know that whatever we tend to want is likely “smaller” than what God has for us. And I’m not talking about actual size, exposure, or success in the terms we are used to thinking about. God works often by way of subtraction. It’s only through death that we get to experience resurrection.
It’s only through surrender that we get to taste and see that God is as good as He promises He is.
For You…
As promised, paid subscribers get access to FREE occasional art journaling workshops and the next one is coming on October 14th at 5PM Eastern. This will be offered for a small fee to non-paying subscribers, and will be hosted live over Zoom.
(Paid Substack subscribers will be sent the Zoom link to join and do not need to register)
I am so excited for you, friend. A thousand yeses to whatever God has in store!