Month: May 2021

thoughts

direction

alyssapebbles

Ever since graduating from college, and certainly even much before that (though I have felt it most tangibly in the post-college years), I have struggled with finding direction in my life. Perhaps it came to a head as I embarked into the post-graduate world with my heart on my sleeve, ready for all the amazing adventures God had for me in vocational ministry, only to be thrust into the confusing chaos of becoming an adult and having to make my own schedule and define my own path.

I remember vividly the panic that set in that first fall after college when my schedule wasn’t clearly laid out for me like the predictability of quarterly classes that I was used to. I had been living within routines and structure created for me my whole life, and all of a sudden I was supposed to determine how to manage my days and my time all on my own. While it should have been freeing, instead it felt incredibly overwhelming and led to absolute paralysis.

I was terrified of making the wrong move. I was terrified of the weight of the responsibility that suddenly seemed all on my shoulders. I had been hired as the Young Adults intern at a church in Santa Cruz, and I felt like a total hypocrite leading other adults when I had no idea how to be an adult myself. I had never been in a significant ministry leadership role and felt like an imposter. The fear was crippling and utterly debilitating–and I gave into it.

I didn’t trust that God could use me despite my fears. I believed the doubts and the lies that told me I had no right to be in that position. And that led to a series of seasons of deep questioning about everything I had thought I heard from God about His calling on my life.

For the next few years, I bounced around in so many different directions, trying to find a career path that would stick, but nothing really did.

And to be honest, not much still has. To this day, I struggle to discern what my vocational calling is. All the way up until the end of college the plan was to become a Christian counselor, but then God shifted my heart and I felt the pull towards vocational ministry, working directly for the church. It didn’t make sense when it was nothing like what I thought it would be.

I don’t think I’m alone in searching for direction, and I’ve come to realize that I have a lot more agency than I realize. When I was asking God all of those questions about where I was supposed to be headed and doubting every single thing that was in my direct path, I felt completely powerless. I didn’t acknowledge that maybe I was already where I was supposed to be, and that I could take little, practical steps to move forward. I was looking for a big, dramatic answer to my questions, instead of focusing on the seemingly mundane everyday choices I could make. I wanted God to just fix all my problems, give me all the answers, and lay out a clear and direct path for me instead of taking on the responsibility myself, with the skills, talents, and mind that He’s given me to do so.

I didn’t acknowledge that maybe I was already where I was supposed to be, and that I could take little, practical steps to move forward.

I think we fall into a rut when are seeking direction without a willingness to take action. I am certainly guilty of this, and sometimes the Christian culture seems to encourage it when we talk so much about “calling.” We have big dreams for our lives, but if we lack the discipline to achieve those dreams one small step at a time, we will be left constantly discouraged and demoralized. Perhaps the most valuable thing for me over the past few years has been getting practical–getting into the nitty gritty of what it really means to 1) be a disciple of Jesus and 2) move within that framework towards my own personal goals.

Our structure comes from His word. He lays out clearly how to follow Him, and after that… it’s up to us! There is so much freedom within His way for us to get creative in what we pursue. But if we don’t start with roadmap of His word we will be completely aimless and lost.

I’m not one with a natural bent towards structure or discipline. So I have to be extra intentional about how I use my time and need lots of extra help along the way by people who have travelled these roads before me. I’m learning that setting goals, even though it can feel scary or confining, is essential. If I don’t have a goal then I don’t know where I’m going. And I’m also learning that I can’t let my feelings dictate when and how I pursue those goals.

It’s not romantic and it’s not mysterious. It takes dedicated hard work and perseverance to see it through until you reach your goals. There will be lots of failure, and we have to be okay with that. We can’t let failure define us. But if we never even try, we will always be left wondering what we could have achieved.

I don’t want to look back at the end of my life and see all the opportunities I missed because I was afraid to step out in faith. I don’t want to be on the sidelines watching everyone else’s victories while I inwardly envy their determination and grit. I want to say yes to opportunities and directions that ignite my passion, even if they scare me to death.

There is indeed a path for your life my friends, but it’s not going to be magically stumbled upon one day as you sit around dreaming about it. It’s going to be revealed as you put one shaky foot in front of the other. Sometimes we will only be able to see where to put the next foot, and sometimes He may illuminate miles ahead of us, but either way, we are called to move. We are not meant to be stagnant creatures–this world is a dynamic place and it needs dynamic people to make it look more like God’s kingdom.

Let’s set our direction and run after it wholeheartedly.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-3

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thoughts

why you don’t have to keep up

alyssapebbles

Along the theme of my last few posts about social media and voices coming at us from all angles, I feel it’s also important to discuss this idea of “keeping up,” and why it’s utterly exhausting and not worth it.

There’s so much temptation–nay, demand, to keep up with everything in our culture. If we’re not up to date on the news, the current social issues, our friend’s camping trip, and the hot political topics all at once, we are deemed “ignorant,” as if we don’t really care about what’s happening in the world. Well, most of the time I think we all do care; we may just be suffering from compassion fatigue and burnout.

Just like with the voices in our lives, we can only process so much information at once. We can only scroll from the beautiful birth of our friend’s child to the loss of another friend’s dad in the span of 5 seconds so many times before our hearts feel just about ready to explode with the constant back-and-forth of deep pain and incredible joy.

We are not meant to consume the amount of material we are currently bombarded with. We are not built for it. We can’t handle it. It is too much for our fragile psyches.

How do we balance the information we consume with the life we live? I still don’t have an answer. I am still struggling myself, to be honest. I want to be connected. I want to know what’s going on in the world and with my friends. And the internet makes it so dang easy to do that to an obsessive degree. With the tap of my finger I can access worlds.

But I’d rather be the person that missed something important because I was so busy living my important life. I would rather be a little bit clueless and distracted living my life for the Lord than constantly attached to my phone waiting for the vicarious stimulation of someone else’s important event.

I’m not promoting shutting off everything–I just want you and I to find relief from the constant distractions bombarding our souls.

What if we paid more attention to the immediate people in our lives, in our circles, than the people we only see on the screen? What if we got involved in some local issues, rather than letting the fear mongering of the world news make us paralyzed because there’s nothing we can really do? What if we focused on what is right in front of us in this day, and the simple work that God is calling us to do right now, in our analog life?

I write this to you as someone who is still figuring it all out. I am still quick to turn to the screen, but I’m not finding the fulfillment I’m craving. And I sense God calling me to a deeper way of living, a way that isn’t wrapped up in keeping up with everyone else but rather keeping up with Him. Seeking to know what He is up to, what He is doing in my heart and in my circles and in the world. Sometimes that involves other people and social media and world events, but sometimes it’s just between me and Him.

Let’s stay connected, but with purpose.Let’s remember why we’re here and focus on our little part in the story. Let’s create instead of consume.

Uncategorized

voices

alyssapebbles

There are so many voices in each of our lives telling us so many different things that it’s easy to become paralyzed. It’s easy to get stuck and confused and overwhelmed. We become so fearful of making the wrong decision that we don’t do anything at all. Or we gather so much information but don’t know what to do with it.

This is no way to live.

A dear friend of mine is struggling to make a big decision largely because of the cacophony of voices speaking to her from all angles, perhaps the loudest ones in her own mind. I advised her to listen only to her own voice, but what if even your own voice is conflicted? Who’s voice can we actually, truly trust? Who is the ultimate authority in our lives, the One we can turn to when nothing else makes sense?

It’s an easy Christian answer, of course, but not as easy to live out. Even God’s voice can be hard to decipher among the rest–especially when we are so used to listening to all the rest and letting them be louder. It’s easier to listen to the peripheral voices than to the Main One, because that requires effort. It requires the intentional work of quieting our souls and reading His word and discerning what He is speaking to our hearts. We have to dig.

I’m realizing I’ve been letting too many voices into my own life–good, helpful, uplifting, encouraging voices–but too many nonetheless. When I’m listening to so many others’ voices, my own and God’s gets drowned out. There is so much wisdom in listening to other voices, but never at the expense of hearing from God Himself. We can listen to all the podcasts and read all the books and follow all the influencers on Instagram and become numb to the One True Voice.

Why do we fill up on the substitutes when we have the real food available to us?

I think it’s spiritual laziness, quite frankly–at least in my case. I know the best stuff, the stuff that all the other voices are really just echoing, is in His Word. I have the very source of life accessible to me and yet I choose to listen to the echoes. I’m not saying the echoes aren’t useful and important (what I am writing to you right now is an echo!)–I’m saying that when we fill ourselves up with these voices instead of filling ourselves with God’s voice first, we are filling up on emptier calories. Why do we fill up on the substitutes when we have the real food available to us?

I’m a fan of substitutes; I’ve been gluten-free for a long time. But I will say this: there is nothing as satisfying as the crunchy crust and delectably soft insides of fresh-baked, gluten-full bread. The gluten-free bread satisfies the hunger, but it doesn’t satisfy the soul as well as that gluten-y bread. It’s the same way with God’s word. It is designed to nourish us completely. External teachings and voices are good supplementally, but never as the main course.

No matter how loud all the voices sound in your life, remember that they are just that–voices. You don’t have to listen to them. You can let them confuse you or fill you or make you lose your mind, OR you can tune your ears to hear His voice. You can discipline your mind and heart by consistently reading His word and talking to Him throughout your days. You will begin to recognize His voice among the others. You will become familiar with His loving tone and the nudges of His Spirit. The other voices won’t sound so important and urgent anymore.

I’m still learning to do this. In a world where we have every possible voice available to us, some days it can feel impossible. We’re no longer subject only to the voices in our immediate circles, but to the whole wide world of the internet. With so many potential voices to listen to, now more than ever we have to protect our minds and hearts.

Often God’s voice does come through other people and mediums–I’m absolutely not discounting supplementary material or friends and advisors that speak truth into your life. But when we are overwhelmed by too many voices, we know where to go to be sure we are hearing from Him first and foremost. Reading His word will clear away the cobwebs and shed light on which of the other voices are true and worth listening to.

Uncategorized

a new normal

alyssapebbles

As our country shifts into post-pandemic times, there is much relief and excitement, but also a bit of trepidation. Is it really going to stick? Can we really just go back to “normal?” What even is normal?

We’ve all gotten so used to bating our breath, waiting for the next curveball of a spike in cases or another virus mutation, that this return to normalcy seems almost too good to be true. We have become skeptical, cynical, preservation-focused. We have been hiding in our homes like hermits and are afraid to step into the light of day–the sun feels a little too promising, a little too brutal on our damaged skin and psyches. But nevertheless, the sun is here. The times truly are changing, and we get to change with them. We get to step into this next season scarred and worn out–but also filled with a new and deeper hope that has developed within us because of the trials we’ve collectively walked through. The pain and horror we have collectively known. No more will a barbecue with friends be taken for granted; every gathering will be a luxury and an opportunity to praise God. Every coffee shop date and concert and graduation party will be filled with worship, because we know it can be taken away in an instant. We know a world without the joy of in-person fellowship. We know the mental anguish of isolation. We know the fear of never being able to see our loved ones again.

Because of what we’ve known, we’ve grown. And now we can heal. Now we can move forward into a new normal, a new world that is defined by our gratitude for every moment.

Uncategorized

living in the shallows

alyssapebbles

Today’s world makes it easier than ever to watch everyone else’s lives and forget to live our own. I’ve caught myself in the bad habit and exhausting cycle of doing this as I’ve introduced social media back into my life after lent. I feel the tension of wanting to be involved with other people online and getting a little…too involved. I’m realizing I’m becoming passive and complacent. It’s so much easier to watch than engage. I’m struggling to find the balance, and I’m disappointed in myself for yet again becoming a slave to the scroll.

How do we engage with social media in a healthy way? In a way that doesn’t hinder but rather enhances our souls and our lives? These are the questions I’m asking myself lately, as I open my Instagram feed for the thirty-second time within the same hour, craving that little red notification bubble to pop up and convince me that someone cares about me. It’s about watching others, but it’s also about wanting others to watch me, and that’s when I know I’m in trouble. That’s when I know I’m living on the surface–living in the shallows.

It’s about watching others, but it’s also about wanting others to watch me, and that’s when I know I’m in trouble.

Giving it up entirely was easy. Learning how to use it in a balanced way is a lot trickier, and I fail most days. I suppose that’s how it is with most things in this conflicting world–it takes a lot more discipline to be in the world but not of it than it does to shut out the world, which can be the temptation. I used to be an advocate of that sort of asceticism, and certainly there are times when we need to completely fast of those things that are harming our souls, but I’ve learned over time that it’s not ultimately sustainable and it’s not ultimately what we’re called to.

Be in the world but not of it.

What if we started using social media as a way to spread light and love to others, instead of pointing to ourselves? What if we transformed it into an environment of giving to one another rather than taking from each other?

As I hold the tension of gaining “visibility” on social media as an aspiring author at the same time as recognizing it’s not really about me, I am seeking what it means to steward this gift of online connection well. Because it really is that–a gift. Social media allows us new windows into others’ lives and the most connection we’ve ever had as a society. But as with every gift there is a downside if we don’t use it properly to build up God’s kingdom. When we make it about us or let it hold too much of our attention, we are giving the enemy a foothold into all sorts of madness. You’ve seen how this plays out in your own life and the havoc it wrecks on your real life relationships and self-confidence.

I’m going to keep staying involved, but I’m setting boundaries, and you should too–for the protection of your own soul. We are not creatures made to be constantly interrupted by noise and notifications. We are made for deep, soulful living off the screen. So start there, and then come to the screen from a place of wholeness. From a place where you can give to others out of the abundance of your soul rather than seek approval out of your emptiness. And you may find that others in that space desperately need what you have to offer.