Stop and Address the Pain
Two weeks ago I went to a women's conference called allume. It is geared toward bloggers and writers and I went with a specific agenda.
I was going to learn how to turn this past year's experiences into a book.
I was going to get ideas of how to share our tiny house story more consistently.
I was going to learn how to make an e-course about downsizing.
I was going to talk to publishers and get the secret to writing a perfect book proposal.
I was going to learn how to do it all.
And then I started listening.
Not now. Not today.
Chrystal Evans Hurst, co-author of Kingdom Woman, spoke on the last morning of the conference. I highly recommend listening to it, but I'll give you the quick summary.
Chrystal had a perfect experience riding across the Golden Gate Bridge and tried time after time to recreate that experience...but it was never quite the same. During one such attempt she crashed her bicycle and had to go to the hospital by ambulance. She recalls laying on the sidewalk with blood on her shirt and head still ringing asking the Paramedic if she could just finish the ride and then they could go to the hospital. The Paramedic's response was, "I think you need to stop and address your pain."
“There are times on your journey when it is going to be painful and you’ve just got to stop and address the pain. We love going over bridges that are the experience of a lifetime. Something about your journey that seemed so exciting and so beautiful now is not adding up and we don’t like to stop. We don’t want to take break. We can’t say no this time. And Jesus is looking at us and saying, ‘Part of your journey is your willingness to stop address the pain. Stop and address the problem. Stop and be honest about who you are and where you’ve been and how that has affected what you are living out now. Stop because I already know.’”
I haven't been blogging because there has been more pain than inspiration these last couple months. I went to this conference in search of a way to share the journey we are on and realized that I can't possibly share something that I haven't even fully processed yet. The journey has just begun. I need to stop and address the pain. The choices we've made this year to downsize, build a tiny house and now move across the country have been incredibly difficult. We wholeheartedly believe these decisions are part of a story God knew long ago, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard. What I learned from this conference was nothing I expected but everything I needed.
It is better to have daily conversations with God than weekly blog posts.
It is ok to be sad.
It is normal to grieve.
The story can be written later.
Right now is the time to just live in it. Live in the chaos. Embrace the BIG feelings that accompany big decisions. Nobody expects you to keep it together all the time. Be ok with the place you are at rather than rushing to the end result.
