Slow down for a hot second.
Rest and breathe deep.
Enjoy the moment and stop searching for the next best thrill. It’s not about that. I know you don’t get it right now, but one day, I promise you will.
Stop striving to be better. What you are right now is enough. Cannonball into the river. I know you’re thirsty and dry. Take one step at a time. Let go. Let your desires be passing thoughts in the warm Thailand wind.
Honey-bird, you’re going home.
And you will hate it at first.
When you get home, the mundane will quickly cloud you and render you broken, shaken, and the voices you hear all around you will make you believe you’re not enough again.
But hold onto Your Hope. I know you. I know where you are headed.
It’s worth every second of the dry season.
I know you want more. I know you think that being a leader will give you clarity, vision, and life. But sometime down the road, you will sit in your silent living room and let that desire go like sand falling through the cracks of your fingers. One day it won’t matter to you whether or not you hold position.
One day, you’ll be so secure and you will know your worth. The difference between where you are now and where you are then is that you will have the confidence enough to begin walking in it and you will not care whether you trip a million times over again.
When you get to that day, it won’t even occur to you to leave for a long period of time again. Your roots will sink deeper, and your connections will be that of vulnerable intention and security like you’ve never experienced before. You will be so secure in His love that broken plans and offenses will roll right off your back.
There’s something about taking root and staying somewhere, investing in a place for the long haul with messy, broken, and different people that steadies you in a way leaving never does. It will bring you to a much higher and mightier understanding of the Truth.
I know you want to keep going right now. But God wants you to stop running. He wants you to accept yourself, and face your personal humanity. No one is super human and no one can do it alone.
You are not an island unto yourself, but a bridge with roots that connect deeply, encourage widely, and build strongly with your words, your gentle and joyful presence, and light.
It breaks my heart, because you can’t see it now, but I know that one day you will.
Stop taking the burden upon your shoulder to perform and let God carry you. Let Him catch every angry, misunderstood, and unseen tear.
In a book you will read sometime soon, the author Sarah Hagerty writes about the hidden seasons and how tender God is in His planning of our lives. It reminded me of this moment you found yourself upset over another unmet expectation to keep going, landing you in the dry desert.
Hagerty writes:
“God’s plan required a desert — an arid, dusty, inhospitable climate. Today, our desert climate could be our corners of hiddenness… It is there, in whatever this desert is, that He promises to speak tenderly. What feels like a wilderness, a desert — the hidden seasons and the hidden spaces throughout our day that expose how dry we are on the inside — cannot thwart the maker of rain. These are the times our roots forge deeper through the earth to find the water source. It’s the only way to survive drought.”
It is not about what you do, but rather about the secret place in which you come running back to Him.
every.
single.
time.
He can reveal His rain to you in your life. All you have to do is accept it.
Receive it.
Stay and wait.
