Absolutes

This is me this week.

A little dramatic maybe but I look at this picture of my precious #princesspea and I know exactly how she feels.  She wants to give up.  In this moment, learning to ride her bike is not worth the frustration and pain.

This week I leveled with God.  I told him, "I don’t want to do this."  I don't want to spend every waking hour thinking about my next social media post.  I don't want to worry anymore about who is watching the vlog.  I don't want to think about how my words could get twisted into something that offends someone instead of inspires them.  And God listened.

He listened to me cry out that I’m stretched too thin.  That I’m tired of eating out and staying up late.  That I’m tired of only doing everything half-way because that is all I have.  That I’m clearly not the right person for this job because of the things that I have read others say about me.  And He reminded me of a once-favorite story of mine.

Nerd alert: I love C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.  Like, until I had kids, I read all 7 books every single year.  They never get old and every time I read them I am inspired in some way.

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the Pevensies are on a mysterious island with invisible creatures.  Lucy is tasked with sneaking into the magician’s house and finding the spell to make them visible again in his book.  Amongst the other spells in the magician’s spell book, Lucy finds one that would let you know what your friends think about you and she utters it.  She, of course, is crushed when what she hears is not what she expected or hoped.  She laments later to Aslan that she doesn’t think she’ll be able to forget what she heard her friends say.  I feel like my heart echoes hers when she says, “Oh dear.  Have I spoiled everything?” 

Did I pour water on my passion when I satisfied my curiosity and read those comments?  Would I have been better off not reading them?  Will that defining moment change everything from here on out?  (Told you I was being dramatic.)

“Child,” said Aslan, “did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?”

I did pour water on my passion for my purpose when I read those comments and there is no way to know how hot it could have burned if I hadn’t.  However, I do have a choice of what to do next.  As I wrestle with that decision today, I am focusing on my absolutes; what I know without a shadow of a doubt:

1. God sees me
2. God sees the burdens I carry
3. God has a plan for me
4. His plan requires me to be visible and vulnerable

And with that, I know I must carry on.

If you have hit a wall pursuing your purpose let me encourage you with this one thing:  Start with your absolutes.  And know that God sees you.