Author: alyssapebbles

thoughts

coming out of the woods

alyssapebbles

Little guy is four months old now and I am praising the Lord that I truly feel like we are out of the woods of the craziness of the newborn season. It almost feels like a distant memory now–all those sleepless nights, panic attacks and profanity-filled prayers. I don’t know how we made it through but we did. A season that felt like it would last forever has finally passed, and so much quicker than I ever could have expected. The baby sleeps through the night and the hormones have settled and life actually feels joy-filled once again, with a new kind of joy that only a baby can bring.

But there is a part of me that is afraid. Afraid of sinking back into that pit of despair. Afraid that the ball will drop again.

The hard seasons of life have taught me to be skeptical about the good ones. I’ve become jaded enough to expect something to go wrong when things are going right, searching for the dark clouds in a suspiciously blue sky. I wish I could just enjoy the sweetness without anticipating the sour. To embrace the present without worrying about what is to come. But life has trained me otherwise. Life wants me to become a cynic, to expect and plan for the worst. And it has a way of sounding so convincing and logical, so practical and wise–especially with the news headlines these days and the increasingly chaotic and divided state of the world. Perhaps “life” is really just a pseudonym for Satan, who would love nothing more than to see us live in a constant state of fear and anxiety. But that is not the way of faith.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

God has a different way for us. He doesn’t allow us to go through hard things to “weather” us or to beat us down. He’s not trying to break us simply for the sake of seeing us suffer, to “teach us a lesson,” or to keep us on our toes. No, quite the opposite in fact. He breaks us in order to make us more whole. Like the pot that is more beautiful once it has shattered and been glued back together by the potter, until we are broken (and accept our brokenness) we can never know true wholeness. A wholeness that isn’t achieved by us trying to put the pieces back together ourselves, but rather by the Potter Himself. He has certainly done so to me through this thing called new motherhood. I had no idea how broken I could be and yet how whole I would become by going through the fire of the early postpartum days. My old self had to be broken in order to become the new mother that my little boy needs–but that breaking process is always a painful one.

The things that He broke in me were things that needed to be broken anyway, regardless of becoming a mother: selfishness, stubbornness, an illusion of independence and an entitlement to my time and needs first. Having a baby was simply the circumstance He used and is using to break me in this season, but He can and will use anything in our lives if we let Him. The choice is not whether or not to be broken (because we will be), but rather whether we allow Him to remake us or try to remake ourselves. It is the classic choice between bitter or better. And I want to choose better.

In these good days with my precious boy, I want to soak it all in. I want to enjoy the stage we are at now where he is cuddly and adorable and so much fun to be with. I want to think only of the now, the beautiful and sacred now. Because, in reality, that’s all we have. Future worries or hopes cannot be clung to, because they may or may not happen. But right now, I have a wonderful family and a roof over my head and life is good. And if the ball drops again (which it will), God will give me the grace to endure it, as He did through the newborn season and every season before that.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

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2 month update

alyssapebbles

It’s been just over two months now with my sweet baby boy, and God has certainly been at work in my heart in very in-my-face ways as I grapple with my new reality of being a mama and all that it demands of me physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The truth is, I’m angry.

All the emotions I thought I had processed during pregnancy, I am actually having to face now that the little guy is here. All the ways I thought I had made peace with being a mom before I felt ready have come back and slapped me in the face– I was not ready for this. Not. at. all.

I was not ready to spend all of my waking (and asleep) hours feeding, burping, being spit up on, changing diapers, stressing that we hit all the milestone activities during waketime, making sure baby is not under or over-tired, rocking to sleep for 45 minutes for each of the 5-6 naps of the day, stressing over waking up the baby when he is asleep, and then repeating all over again 5 times a day and 3 times a night. I was not ready to dedicate my whole entire being and all of my mental and physical resources to this business of new motherhood. I was not ready to be deprived of basic needs to attend to my child’s. I was not ready for the selflessness this job demands of me. And I’m angry about it.

And of course God knew all that, and has been waiting for me to be honest about it. To be honest that I feel like my life has been taken away from me, my freedom and independence. That this “gift” that He’s given me doesn’t feel so very much like a gift oftentimes, but like a huge burden that is impeding my “right” to be a young and free adult. He knows that seeing my single and married friends without kids post about their fun summer adventures on Instagram creates a deep resentment in my heart. That they can’t understand what I’m going through, as much as they want to try. He knows the growing frustration inside of me, the fact that I feel tipped over the edge of my sanity at every cry in the middle of the night and the fact that I don’t know what I’m having for dinner anymore, or if I will even have time for dinner at all. The frustration at every small sound that wakes up the baby I just spent 45 minutes trying to get to sleep. He sees the panic attacks and debilitating depression, the terrifying notion constantly in the back of my mind that I can’t do this. That I can’t take care of my own baby. He knows the guilt and the shame of it, the paralyzing fear that I am not enough for my child.

I love my son. But I am exhausted. And I honestly can’t wait for this stage to be over.

I grapple with honoring and validating my feelings at the same time as not allowing them to excuse me from this role that God has called me to. The feelings are there and very strong and I have to deal with them, but they are not the end-all-be-all, and I do believe God will change them over time. As much as I want to escape His calling on my life and go back to the comfortable life I had before, I can’t.

So I will continue in this hard season walking in the tension of what I believe and what I feel, praying each day that God will help me to see His reality clearer and clearer, instead of my own clouded vision. And I consider tools that I have never considered before to help me along the way, like medication. I trust that He is still good, even though it doesn’t feel that way right now. And I thank Him for each small blessing in my day, even when it feels like the burdens far outweigh them.

My heart is being re-made, of this I am sure. I have to believe that this process that feels like death will ultimately lead to new life.

thoughts

a new mom’s (honest) perspective

alyssapebbles

We are almost three weeks in to my little one’s life, and everyone wants to know:

How are you?

And as I have tried to answer that question for myself, all I can honestly say is:

Exhausted

Overwhelmed

Depressed

Anxious

But those are not the things people want to hear. Those are not the things I am supposed to say when we have just been given the biggest blessing of a sweet baby boy.

Don’t get me wrong–I love the little guy more than my very own life. And that’s what makes it so damn hard to feel the things I’m feeling. Every time I look at him a flood of guilt washes over me for feeling this way.

To be honest, I feel like my life is over. Or at least, my life as I knew it. All the freedom and independence I had has been stripped away and my days are now relegated to feeding, changing diapers, sleeping, and repeating in an endless, crazy-making cycle. I am at my baby’s mercy. Any semblance of a schedule is gone–planning my days is nearly impossible now and simple things like keeping the house clean or going out for a walk are now incredibly difficult. On top of that, the sleep deprivation and postpartum hormones contrive together to ensure I can’t process any of this in a normal state of mind. What is this thing called motherhood? It’s so much harder than I ever could have expected or imagined. No books or classes can prepare you for this.

My heart is grieving the loss of what was. When things were easier and I could come and go as I please. When I didn’t have a tiny human who depended on me for survival, while all I can do is try to survive myself. When I could make a schedule. When I was in control.

And I realize that’s what this is all about. That’s what it’s always about: control.

I want to be in control of my own life. I want my will to be done. My way. And this baby was not my will. This was not my plan. And yet here I am, responsible for this precious little life, and as always, I have a choice. I can either keep wishing things were different, or I can accept that this is the charge God has given me. This is the gift God has given me. Often His gifts don’t feel like gifts, until we look back and see how He used them to change us. To make us more like Himself. I can’t say I have that perspective yet, but I’ve seen Him do it in the past with the hardest of my circumstances, so I know He can do it again.

Motherhood is an endless giving of self. It is a death to self. I have such a newfound respect for all the mamas out there, and hope I can be half as good as them as I figure this all out. But for now I’m still in the grieving process, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I don’t love my son. It doesn’t make me a bad mother. These feelings are normal. And I’m allowing myself to feel them right now, despite what the world wants to see. Despite what other moms portray on Instagram. I’m bringing these thoughts and feelings to God, and we’re working through them together. I’m taking it one day, one moment, at a time, and trusting that it’s going to get better.

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the home stretch

alyssapebbles

As I come nearer and nearer to my baby’s due date, it’s all feeling overwhelmingly real.

I’m really going to have a child, in like, the next few days or weeks.

I bounce between panic and joy and everything in between. Everyone wants to know how I’m feeling, and to be honest, I don’t even really know. But I know that this is happening, and I know that God is good.

I still don’t feel ready to be a mother, but I know I never will. Instead, I focus on that sweet moment when I finally get to hold this boy in my arms and look into his little eyes (which I hope are the same beautiful blue-green hazel as my husband’s!). I focus on the joy that I’m sure he is going to bring us despite all the sleepless nights that lie ahead. I focus on God and the fact that this is His plan, so He will see it through.

So we wait in anticipation for our little miracle to arrive, and meanwhile I carry on about my day with growing fatigue and discomfort, but also a growing joy. I know, deep in my heart, that this is all worth it. All the pain and fear and discomfort is going to make way for pure joy.

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

John 16:21

I’m reminded that this is always the way–anything worth having requires great sacrifice and often suffering. We must go through the “pregnant” period, the season of growth and laboring until there is deliverance. This pregnancy has made that very tangible.

This is only the beginning. Once our sweet boy has arrived there will be a new set of challenges, some of which may feel insurmountable, and I know I will have days where I feel like giving up. It’s easy to listen to all the lies the enemy whispers to me in the night that I don’t have what it takes and that it will all be too much. I know I will be brought to the end of myself over and over again…but that’s a good thing. That’s the only way to truly know God. It’s only at the end of myself that I will meet Him, and He will meet me. My life is not my own–what better way to live in that reality than to raise a child?

I only speak of what I know now–I’m sure my perspective will be very different soon. For now I’m working on surrendering my own life (and my child’s) to a God who loves us both more than we can ever understand.

thoughts

lemonade

alyssapebbles

I didn’t post last week because craziness of the best (but still overwhelming) kind ensued.

Long story short, God made beauty out of the ashes of our situation. He turned lemons into lemonade, as He tends to do. He always makes a way.

We were offered a nicer, cleaner apartment within our complex that gets afternoon sun, is in a quieter spot, and has an in-unit washer dryer: three BIG wins in my book. Best of all, there is no musty smell. They immediately put our previous apartment back on the market and I am praying that the next occupants don’t get sick. But I am so, so incredibly grateful to have a safe space for our baby that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to afford had there not been mold in the last one.

Jeremy’s lil nursery beginnings

I knew God was going to come through for us, and it’s amazing to see Him yet again provide for our every need. There is still so much to do before our sweet boy comes, but I finally feel able to settle and nest in our new space. I can finally breathe (both literally and figuratively).

This whole situation has reinforced to me that no matter what, we will be taken care of. As friends and family have gathered around us to support us in this time, I feel overwhelmed by His love and how little I can actually do on my own. And I have a feeling this will be a common theme of my upcoming motherhood…

Dependence.

Perhaps as I take on more responsibility than I feel ready to handle as a new mom, God is asking me to give the weight of it to Him. Maybe instead of feeling weighed down by burdens and heaviness, He wants me to be lighter.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

My life verse. The words that bring my weary soul to rest–words to live by and remember always, especially in the throes of tumult and chaos (which is seeming to be everyday life…)

Adulting is hard enough; I can only imagine what it will be like to be a parent. I still don’t know how to change a diaper and our stroller has not even been taken out of its box yet. I will be far from a perfect mom. But I can’t wait to watch God show up in the middle of it all. I can’t wait to see Him provide again and again, as my faith deepens and grows. This process of surrender is not easy or quick, but rather a lifetime of learning to trust against all our natural and self-protective instincts. It’s a process of letting go of our expectations of what our lives should look like, and instead letting them be what they are: messy, scary, joyful, and everything in between.

This process of surrender is not easy or quick, but rather a lifetime of learning to trust against all our natural and self-protective instincts.

As one trial gets resolved, I know there will be many more to come–but I’m not afraid. Jesus goes before me and has already made the way; I’m only expected to trust and follow. He will continue to bring beauty where I only see ashes, order where I only see chaos. He is working behind the scenes and I don’t have to worry about what my veiled human eyes can see and frail human heart can comprehend. I rest assured of this.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

Psalm 34:19

thoughts

surrender

alyssapebbles

So…we have mold.

And I’m angry.

In fact, I’m furious. I don’t understand WHY God would allow this to happen. Again. Right before our baby is due. I want to blame someone, I want to kick and scream and cry and punch a wall. I’m so mad at God and I’m so mad at myself for allowing us to get into this situation. But most of all I feel…helpless.

Completely out of control.

And I hate being humbled in this way, back on my knees.

But I realize I have a choice–I’ve come to a crossroads. I’m weary and exhausted and I can choose to let this all consume me and ruminate in my anger and entitlement to a clean living space and MY plan for our life, or I can surrender. I can actually still choose to trust God, even in this. Even though it’s still confusing and I don’t know the implications of any of it yet, whether we will be able to keep living here or have to move out, I can just. trust.

Maybe it’s easier said than done, or maybe it can actually be easily done. Maybe it is just simply a release, a final surrender of my own will to His. Fighting is so tiring. I’ve been fighting for so long and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Maybe it’s easier to finally just wave the white flag and say “You take this.” Maybe this is what He’s been wanting from me all along and He uses these circumstances to shake me into awareness–I have no control.

None. Zilch.

No matter how much I have planned or prepared or hoped or prayed, things don’t go my way. No matter how much I try to control outcomes, they don’t turn out the way I want. So why keep forcing it and being so sorely disappointed? Why not just allow Him to have His way?

I recognize my anger comes from a sense of what I deserve, but God never promised to give us what we deserve. He promised to give us what we need.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

Friends, our foundation is shaky if it rests on anything other than Christ. Anything you have been counting on can be taken from you at any moment–health, friends, family, your job…whatever you hold you dear cannot be what you depend on.

We have to depend on Him alone. I have to, or I will be so utterly destroyed.

I can kick and scream and cry and be rude to customer service people but at the end of the day He’s God and I’m not. All I can control is the way I respond to the circumstances He gives me. And I have to be willing to take both the good and the bad from His hand. He has given me so, so much good–who am I to question what I deem the “bad?” I don’t understand what He is doing but I don’t have to. I just have to keep trusting and believing that His heart for me truly is good and that He is indeed going to provide for me.

Sometimes we can’t understand what it means to truly surrender until we are put in situations where we are forced to, where we realize our own weakness and futility. These are the pivotal moments in our lives when we decide who God really is and if we really, actually trust Him. I’m choosing to trust Him, because I see no other alternative.

thoughts

trust in the storm

alyssapebbles

It’s been tempting not to write a post this week because so much happened in the last week that has given me major anxiety, and normally I would allow myself to just rest. But then I remembered how writing for me is rest. Processing my life through words is one of the most restful activities for me. And I’ve also set a goal for myself to post something every Monday, whether or not it’s perfect or “finished” by my own definition, so this is me holding myself accountable at the same time as sharing my life with you.

This past week we moved into our new apartment, the home I have been dreaming of for the past month and half, envisioning our little family budding up within these walls. And the moving process wasn’t even stressful at all like I thought it was going to be eight months pregnant, thanks to the generous aid of Mitch’s and my parents and brother…no, the stress came from a different source.

A musty smell in the living room.

If you’ve read any of my posts about my health, you might know that I have had chronic health issues since living in a mold-infested apartment two years ago. So a musty smell may not be a big deal for someone else, but for me it causes PTSD. And sends me spiraling into paranoia, fear, and anxiety.

I never anticipated having to deal with this again. This was the exact thing I wanted to avoid in the space where not only we are living but going to be raising a baby–a vulnerable, fragile being who definitely requires a non-toxic environment. To be honest, the fear was absolutely paralyzing for the first few days here and I felt my whole inner world crumbling to pieces.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to avoid the things that have caused us immense pain and suffering in the past, they come back to haunt us. What do we do when this happens? How do we respond to these situations–to God?

I think my immediate response is anger and entitlement. I should not have to deal with this again. I have been through so much with my health; this is absolutely unacceptable. But the anger quickly dissipates into fear and I begin to question everything: I’m already so immunocompromised, how will I survive another exposure? How will this affect my baby? How will we ever afford remediation if it comes to that, God forbid it’s so toxic we have to move out and leave all our stuff behind?

The questions of why and how consume me. I’m thrust back into the dark and chaotic mental place where everything is up in the air and I don’t know where the ground is. My anxiety feeds my physical bodily responses, and I become an ultra-hypochondriac, wondering if my symptoms are related to mold in our apartment or if my own deteriorating psychological state is causing them at this point (most likely the latter). I don’t want to be back here, never thought I’d be back here. Especially now of all times, when the stakes feel so high as we are about to start our new family. Why would God allow this to happen again?

But as I am questioning and doubting and fearing, something inside of me is small and still and reassured. Someone is whispering to my soul that it’s all going to be okay. That even if the worst scenario happens and there is toxic mold in our apartment and we have to leave and get rid of all of our stuff–we will be okay. And I know this peace can only come from the Lord, because it is certainly not originating from me.

We will find out if we have mold in our apartment next week, and until then I am choosing to trust God through my fears. He knows what is best for me and my family, and He will take care of us.

Whatever fear and anxieties are consuming you, God knows what you are dealing with. Trust Him in the storm, not only once it’s over. He will come through for you, even if it’s not the way you wanted or planned.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:7

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.