a slow weekend.
this weekend felt very Tennessee. slow and steady. like a beautiful Southern accent. it was needed, not easy, but needed. this weekend was not about doing, but being. i like the hustle. i like working hard, putting my whole heart into everything and getting my boots dirty-- to borrow my favorite quote by Bono. i'm learning being. it is so much easier for me to be .. with people. but to merely just be… so. so. so much harder. and yet, i need it. so, I'm learning.
the current cry of my heart as of about an hour and a half ago is:: "Renovate my heart."
I have read this book series since I was a young teenager. It follows Christy Miller and her best friend Katie. Christy is the lead in most of the books and although naturally, I am absolutely more like Katie and my best friend, Cazi is more like Christy, I have seen my life parallel Christy's throughout the years. That is minus Christy and the love of her life, Todd, marrying and having two children. I see it more as a heart parallel. Currently I am reading book three of Todd and Christy: the baby years. It is fascinating how reading this book is helping me to process questions and also listen to God's voice through the pages. Robin Jones Gunn is the author and her writing style is exquisitely amazing. I've been processing, with Christy, the changes of a woman's life as she becomes a mom and what that looks like in the everyday. I have pondered this a. lot. Although i do not have a man pursuing me and with whom we are planning our future together, it is a processing of what do i want my life to look like being a wife and then one day a mom. what does it look like in the preparation right now? what do i want it to look like? where does my career factor in that, if at all? what do i want to bring to my family? do i want to be a stay at home mom? do I want to be a working mom? questions upon questions…. Christy's brother's girlfriend, Fina, and her are talking and Fina is sharing the love story of brokenness and redemption between her parents, and she stated, her mom's prayer was "Renovate my heart." And it hit me. That's where I am. I am figuring out what it looks like to be on target for my story. What is the target? What are the arrows and the decisions to have me aiming towards the target. I don't want my life to be random. I am so random and that could happen, but with everything within me, I want to follow Holy Spirit as he leads. I want to make important what is important in the story He is writing within me and let go what is taking me away from that. Even if I go alone.
A lot of renovation is going on physically in my life… and yet also in my mind and heart. On a run tonight, I realized I need to write. I want to write. I have a book within me that I feel like I need to put to paper, but the mere writing makes me paralyzed and I just don't. Instead, I just keep transferring it from one goals and dreams list to another without taking a step. And yet, I have always been a cannonball kind of girl. For better or for worse. That's me. My analyzation usually takes place in the air as I am cliff jumping… I remember cliff jumping so so vividly in Cumberland. Danny stated it was deep enough and he would go first and then it was my time. So, without overanalyzing or talking myself out of it, I jumped… and it was amazing. And yet with this writing dream within me, I do know what it will look like when it comes out, but this I know. I need to get it down on paper, computer… and take a leap. So, this is my first step in the leap. Writing. Not editing myself. Just writing. What is within me. What I am processing. What my heart is feeling. Just typing the words. Words that I believe in, words that create thoughts I want to encourage, challenge, and process.
So, I write. I turn away from fear, and I am choosing step out into the great unknown. Leaning into the whispers of God, following my feet, and taking cannonball leaps **
