Continued

 Continuing from R’s Rue

I don’t know if I’d mentioned that for awhile I have been listening to Pastor Rich Villodas. His sermons have been a balm to my spirit. I’m given hard hitting truth, but it a way that teaches, but doesn’t condemn. No fire and brimstone, but solid truth. I recently ordered his book, The Narrow Path. And as I’m in church today, the second song talks about the narrow way being hard, but it being the path I want to take. I should have realized my worship experience from song to preaching would turn me upside down. Turns out, I didn’t have a clue what my soul would endure. The sermon being about was it ‘worth it’ to follow God without question, without doubt, understanding waiting is not comfortable, but a part of the process. Was I willing to acknowledge its worth despite my years of waiting. I didn’t have time to contemplate this until the song that allows people to come forward, and make decisions. It was during this song that I remember what I had wanted for my life all those years ago. Had those plans succeeded, I may have been outwardly happy, but internally miserable. 

It’s been thirteen years. The blog R’s Rue wouldn’t exist. The friendships would be null and void. I had to remember this same pastor and another telling me at lunch one day, that my mission field is behind this keyboard. I didn’t like the answer. Their words have been proven correct. 

When I first started R’s Rue I would spend hours commenting on other blog in hopes of having fifty page views in a month. Now, what He’s doing with my blogs, I’m speechless. The number is only important in that He is moving mountains. I no longer have to strive. To prove. I’m just being me. He’s doing the rest. In that moment, as I was singing, holding back tears, I would tell people I wanted to be known, because that’s what I felt I needed to be a success in the eyes of the world.  I needed the world to tell my disabled self, I was an acceptable creation. If I had a calling where the results of my work were tangible. Quantifiable. 

It’s not until recently where I’m learning to be uncomfortable that I’m being freed from chains that were mostly self imposed. The success I once wished for comes with a price. I’m having to disconnect. Read more books. Get off social media. Stop trying to recreate a fairy tale. Whether that be personally or in my writing. If the fairy tale works for you, and you have it:  I’m glad you’ve found it. For those of us who learn the hard way, that life will never be a fairy tale, but it can still be good, I’m in this stage. I have to believe waiting is never wasted. 

The road I’m walking is so narrow. God is having to rebuke my every sensibility. Every sensitivity. Is following worth it. I know it is. Some days it takes extra doses of courage to get up, and proclaim it. I’m learning the preciseness of Him equipping the called versus calling the equipped. I’m having to learn what deserves my energy and focus. So as another song says:  ‘I’m learning to find beauty in what I can’t understand’.

Lord, there is so much I don’t understand. Some things maybe just need to remain unexplained mysteries.