Find Your People

Well, here we are again.  I find myself sitting with my computer in my lap instead of a pillow under my head.  There is something about laying in that "in-between" space that allows words to start formulating that I have waited day upon day for.  

Tonight I have had timelines and people filling my head.  Moments of significance, moments worth notating and remembering.  I have a friend who relishes over my memory of specifics.  Dates, years, specific moments that I need to continue to bring to mind.  God told His people to remember, so I feel as though I should too.

Years ago I was given a language for these hash marks upon the timeline on my butcher block paper.  Kairos moments.  Moments when God breaks through and touches a specific moment in your life.  There are dramatic moments, and there are moments that take hindsight to see.  Tonight I find my mind filled with the moments of the past few years.  The hash marks seem to be so many as the encounters multiply through the dates and meetings and connections.  It is as though a puzzle was being built, piece by piece.  Person by person.  A puzzle without the picture on the front to tell you what you are looking to see completed, but none the less, a puzzle that needs to be fitted together.

Thoughts swirl and connect to just over the past 2.5 years.  My brother had just died and a month later my son left for boot camp.  January began with a desperate cry to God for break through and to see MORE of what my new level of expectation had reached.  As the blistering cold of January moved into February and March, life looked like it was settling, and then came a harsh reality.  As words came to complete empty pages I had been waiting to fill, people began falling from the pages of my daily life.  There was a moment that I realized that I had given God permission to clean house, and He was actually doing it.  

I had to fight to keep from losing myself over the months that came next, fight to know my identity, really and truly know who I am.  God was quiet during those months, and the silence felt like fire to my bones.  I know God's character, so there was no questioning of motive, no questioning of His love for me.  Those things were in tact.  It continued to go back to the question, "who are my people?" Who can I count on when times are good, when times are anything but good.  Who speaks truth to me during the times I need to hear it most?  Anyone can be a good cheerleader, who can love some truth into me when it's time to take a breath?  Who can push me forward when it looks like it is a cliff ahead?  The answer looked very different than I expected.  The answer hurt more than I expected.  The answer was that God was slowly building me a new village, the hard part was that there didn't seem to be any near by huts yet.  

Fast forward to "the year of the pause."  I had been waiting on this new found KNOWING that God was ready to do something new.  All of the cells of my being knew that He had a new plan and a new thing....and then the world shut down.  But, it didn't.  It just got quiet enough for those who were calling out to be able to hear each other.  Who knew that God could use a global pandemic to create an entirely new eco system around me?  Tribe, people, family, like-minded prayer warrior-God worshiping people!  The puzzle still doesn't have a picture on the front of the box, but there is more of one coming into focus within the pieces being fitted together.

I have never doubted God, never doubted He was for me, and that His love is endless for me.  I have not always been able to see through the lens in front of me the fullness of those truths.  He is patient, He is kind and He is always good.  Building a new tribe takes time, and there are days that it seems that you may never find people that match your spirit, that make your calling come alive....I just want to tell you, they are out there.  Do not give up!  It can seem lonely, IT IS LONELY.  Find His love while you wait... it is worth it.  Do not settle for less than the Lord has for you.  And when it comes, do not run from it either!  The enemy tries to convince you that you are better alone, and let me tell you...you are not! 

Wherever you find yourself in this cycle of belonging, know that you ALWAYS belong with our gracious Father, and He has so much in store for you and your yes!