Being Still
WHEW!
I just celebrated my 38th birthday and I am still trying to climb down from the Living High I’ve been on for the entire first week of May. I always make a big deal of my birthday and I am sure some people wonder why. It’s simple! Life, for me, has had ups and downs – not unlike the rest of you, I’m sure. But I have chosen to celebrate the good with the bad.
In the last year (the 37th) I have made every possible effort to kick down the doors to the next level of my journey. Like the Road Runner cartoon, I have been the Coyote – repeatedly running into brick walls and painted pictures of tunnels. Only to find that there is nothing there. Well, saying “nothing” would be taking away from the experience all together. So let’s just say that I haven’t found a clear and precise reason for consistently bumping my head on the wall.
IF this isn’t a metaphor for life, I’m not sure what is.
That’s how life operates. It gives you doors (opportunities) and sometimes those doors aren’t the doors for you. Sometimes they are there simply to make an obstacle. Sometimes they are there to see if you’ve learned from the last time you banged your head against the door. Sometimes, I think, we should just kind of knock on the door to see if will open for us, instead of forcing our way through. Well for an entire year, I ignored all that I’ve learned up to this point in Door Opening Management. I refused to be patient and listen.
It has brought me much frustration and aggravation to put it mildly. But just as with any year, coming up on my birthday, things began to become clear.
I realized that I was actually in control of the doors popping up. They only showed up when I started to pray heavily about not having opportunities. Well, I wasn’t real sure what opportunity I was looking for. One thing about the universe is that it deals in actualities and truth. It will only give you what you give to it. So, I was placing a spirit of confusion and frustration into the universe expecting it to somehow take my discontent and transform it to an opportunity of some sort. When actually what I was doing was welcoming more of the same.
So, not only was I willing these doors into my life, but I didn’t know what to do with the doors once they popped up. Being ready, in my mind, I just kicked them down. That didn’t really accomplish much because I wasn’t secure in being on the other side of the door. So once I kicked it down, I was met with darkness and fear set in. Then, I’d bag up out the door or I’d stand there with the door open just in case I needed to make a break for it and hall ass back inside -taking me right back to the point of entrance. You see the never ending cycle here?
Well, God told me to just stop and be still. I wasn’t listening to Him. I was praying. He was answering. But I wasn’t hearing him. Sort of like all the fussing I do at my husband for being on his phone when I’m trying to talk to him. He’s listening to me but he’s not focused on what I’m saying and not really in tune with the emotion I’m experiencing. That was me. I was listening to God, but He may as well not have been speaking because I wasn’t in a place to hear Him. So when all else fails, he says, “Just be still, my child.” So, I did.
I separated myself from the fear.
I was determined to be faithful to his word.
I stopped.
I listened.
I did nothing.
Not long after that (I mean really not long, like yesterday), I noticed that doors began to open and I had nothing to do with them being there. As a matter of fact two doors opened within the same hour. What I’ve learned is to not jump into opening the door too soon. As a good friend of mine reminded me, never move until the breakthrough happens. So, I am still being patient. I am waiting with a faithful heart that just as these doors have opened for me, when I need to move, God will make it clear. He will show me which door to go through. Until that time, I shall remain prayerful and patient.