Be Like Water

I will never forget the eve of 2020. I was at church in my usual seat in the balcony. I was stressed and vexed with circumstances that were not my own. I felt like I was alone on an island with just me and my son. My husband was deployed, and I felt the weight of all my sorrows caving in like a flood from a tidal wave. Instead of drowning, I vowed that 2020 would be nothing like 2019. I promised to start the year off with a bang and flood others’ hearts with what I wanted them to experience. Something they didn’t even know they needed. I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a sum of my circumstances. I wanted people to feel my wave as I surfed.

I proceeded to make plans and place expectations on God with my self-serving good intentions for 2020. It was a vicious cycle of unique opportunities for growth and gut-wrenching blows to my faith. For some reason, I was doing good, but my faith was being tested in every way possible way. I was moving with faith, but not permission to action. My anxiety spiked to an all-time high. The woman all about skin became covered in stress-induced breakouts from overload. Determined to be a wave, I kept pushing. I kept telling myself…

Tough times never last; tough people do.

As I pushed, my body and my husband pushed back. As I pushed, my counselor, my doctor, and my God pushed back until I had a seat. Sitting still has the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in life. I never knew that silence could be so loud. I finally heard what God wanted of me. He wanted me to be a ripple. A RIPPLE! A freaking ripple. I even asked God, are you sure? Because these plans of being a wave haven’t happened YET, and I know with faith, you can make it possible. I was struggling to accept the assignment given to me.

It hit me like a ton of bricks of finally realizing what God has been asking me to be all along. God wants me to be like water. Allowing him the space to move. I kept missing the mark because I made 2020 about me and not him. 2021 will be different. Realize there are times to be a wave, and there are times to be a ripple. Both are equally as powerful. Both are essential to the kingdom. And in his timing, and not my own, Both will be. No longer will I live a Liz lead life filled with good intentions and imperfect execution, but spiritually lead one covered with favor. I will not move on a good word, but a God word. As I write, I feel shackles of always being in control breaking. I can finally see new glimmers of what my future will be.