My godchild is a rebel–-a small-figured, bright-eyed 4 year old with the confidence of ten men. This past weekend, we had so much fun swimming in my pool, biking through the wooded trail behind my home, then cooling off with our favourite flavor of ice cream from a parlour we love nearby.
While I usually love his playful dynamism, yesterday he crossed a line with me. When I asked him, “E! Why don’t you listen?” he responded, “because listening is no fun.”
And that was the moment I realized I had a word for you today.
E! is absolutely right, listening is challenging sometimes. This becomes especially difficult when that tiny voice within goes against everything you actually want to do. And it’s usually clear as day, too. Even when the math adds up perfectly, there will still be times when we choose to go against our intuition and ignore God’s voice; abandoning the things we know for sure.
If you haven’t noticed, this year I’ve been incredibly quiet. My Instagram feed isn’t consistently colored with motivational videos or creative content. Nor am I inclined to post snaps of what I’m up to in my day to day, along with my usual compelling captions recently. I disappeared to NYC for a few months and purposely didn’t stack my calendar with meetings. Outside of client commitments and a few casual encounters with friends, most of my days were spent in the gym or on the couch, staring out the window.
The last 6 months for me have been spent in deep introspection, exploring shit I haven’t and will likely never share publicly. This transition has been a challenge because, naturally, I really enjoy creating content and telling stories. For as long as I can remember, my life has been organized chaos, and I’ve gotten quite accustomed to living it fully.
So, at the start of the year when I felt an energetic shift, I intuitively knew that my 2023 would look quite different compared to what I was used to. Speaking engagements, public appearances, trips around the world, brand partnership deals would be far and few in between. God made it very clear to me that the “show” was over, and that this was going to be a year of personal growth and development. Only this time, it wasn’t for display.
Retracting from my usual public persona has been a struggle because I still find myself cheering on as my peers and colleagues flourish publicly, all while God’s instruction to me was clear and non-negotiable. Essentially, my message was to sit my ass down. This year, I committed to being in a season of service to my purpose.
In the past 6 months I can’t even begin to tell you how many opportunities I’ve said no to that I really wanted to pursue, or the times I’ve declined invitations to events and speaking engagements, to, instead, distance myself from people or distractions.
It’s almost like He’s trying to teach me a lesson that I can only learn in the wilderness. Without hesitance or question, I find myself doing things and making moves that literally don’t make sense. While I’m heading in a forward direction, I don’t yet know where it leads.
On Friday, once my client meetings were completed, I sat on my living room floor and cried for 3 hours. Not because I was sad or depressed, but because I was confused. In my journey of becoming more obedient, I know that I’m being prepared for something grand, but the unknowingness of it all leaves me feeling emotional because the process is very frustrating.
My godchild reminded me of how easy it would be to deviate from this faith walk; to simply ignore the internal work I need to do all because I may have a fear of missing out on or the need for public validation or applause. But I wanted to share this with you because perhaps some of you are struggling to stay steady on your own faith walk. In many ways, you feel overlooked, or forgotten about, or simply find yourself questioning when it’s going to be your turn to step forward.
Baby, everyone has their time. If this isn’t your season of service to your purpose, look at it as your season for preparation, and honour all that is required of you right now. I trust that it will all make sense once God provides structure to something that hasn’t even happened yet.
While my commitments to myself, my clients, my business, and my craft remain intact, I’m fixing my eyes on a renewed energy and perspective. This season, I’m going to find out what I’m really made of. I feel like I’m being broken down in order to be built back up.