Look Up

So I tried to blog about this last night, but the blogger website wasn't behaving like it usually does...

I still have not come up with a title for this post, and even as I write that.... nothing comes to mind. I want to write about hearing today.

I pose one question to you: what kind of a 'hearer' are you? I'm not talking about listening and yes, I understand that 'hearer' is NOT a word. I most recently had an "ah-hah!!" moment (I try not to credit Oprah with hardly anything, but here I go) that led me to understand the issue I have been blindly fighting for 4 years now. It has been an ever constant, ever pressure full and often times emotionally exhausting battle that has consumed many a day in my world.

I have been trying to get someone in my daughters world to hear me. To empathize and just straight up hear what I have been saying for her entire life. I have gone to embarrassing lengths at times to be heard; all it does is make me look foolish and I still don't get the satisfaction of knowing that a concern of mine for Isabel has been voiced and received in its full capacity. Have you ever had someone that has seriously let you down, forget to hear what your saying to them because they are so concerned with what their response will be that they miss everything you just said? It can be so disrespectful and very frustrating to know that they neither care or want to hear what you have to say. What's worse, is that this battle of speaking and not being heard is about my daughter. She is one of two primary concerns for me in this world and I have done everything in my power to be heard for her. What I have found is that nothing I can do or say will ever make me be heard by this person. I'm not sure if it's the past that leads them to turn a deaf ear to me, or if they simply think I don't hear them either. Even more, how many times have I doubted my own words because they weren't being received well by the other person. I have filled the remainder of my glass these last few years, with self doubt and anxiety. That is until Christ opened the flood gates and allowed me to be hit by His awesome love.

If you have never given Beth Moore, a women's devotional author and speaker, a looksey I will recommend her to anyone reading this blog. She writes books, leads mass seminars for women, appears on tv every week and is overall one of the most engaging women I have ever encountered. Not only has God blessed her with an enormous calling to lead people to Christ, but she is a huge fan of hair and make up :) My sister, my mom and myself first encountered Beth when I was only a few weeks along in my pregnancy with Isabel. We had attended the women's bible study at our church called, The Patriarchs. This was a series of studies leading us through the first few books of the Old Testament. Then in 2009, my sister and my mom and I attended her nationwide telecast for her newest book called, "So Long Insecurity," and loved that one as well. It spoke specifically to the battles that women of any age face when dealing with all types of insecurities and how Christ died to save us from them. So needless to say, when I found Beth's book called, "Get Out of That Pit!" at the Warm Beach Christmas bizarre, I knew it was a must read. Although, I had started and forgotten about the book many times.

When I was at the end of my rope in December of last year, I was in need of spiritual guidance. I had spoken to my mom and sisters about what I was walking through spiritually, and they encouraged me as best they knew how.... to pray for and with me. I began reading the word more frequently and even got into the second chapter of Beth's book! I can't credit my "Ah-hah!!" moment to Oprah, or Beth Moore or to some kind of desperate need for guidance I have found within myself. I must, and will, credit it to the Lord of my life. How many hours have I wasted waging a battle against something that I will never be able to win? How many times have I raised my voice to just below a yell, in order to be heard?? It's been like yelling into a storm that persists to rage back at me; like trying to scream in a dream, only to find that my urgency and fear go without being heard. It's been.... well.... exhausting! Through the study of God's word in the book of Job and in reading the kind and loving words in Beth Moore's book about being in a pit, I have been able to nail this one to the cross for Christ to bear for me. He will be heard, whether people like it or not.

I know this has turned into a rather long and somewhat serious blog, but Christ has laid this message of understanding and hope in my heart and I can't help but tell people! What a freedom there is to be found in looking up out of my pit, and realizing that the blue sky has been there all along! I have just been too busy trying to make my own way out, that I never stopped to see the hope that lies before me.

So I pose the question again: What kind of hearer are you? Are you willing to empathize and try to understand where the person speaking to you is coming from? Do you focus too hard on your response, that you hit the mute button on the person speaking to you? Have you fallen into a pit of self doubt because you aren't being heard? Whatever your type, I ask you to look up. Stop yelling into the storm, and let God do it for you. I promise, He is far stronger and way better with His words than we are.

^"18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that^[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."   
                            -Romans 8:18-21




I think I have my title now.

XOXO