Petals

The week was like every other. Play dates, snack time, naps, time outs, lots of messes to clean and lots of laughter between sisters. I worked out, made dinners, wiped down kitchen counters. I folded the little shirts and made the beds. So it was the same like every other week, but everyone kept bringing us flowers.
Griffin walked in the door with a flower for each daughter. Call me old fashion but I love when he walks in with a smile on his face and flowers behind his back. My mother-in-law brought a gardenia for each little the next day. A new friend who came over to our our home for the first time brought a sparkly glitter vase full of purple wild flowers. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except that this week I was fasting, and the Lord often speaks to me through nature and repetition. 

So I saw the invitation to grow, to be pruned and I accepted. Timidly I accepted. And it all unraveled. Well I did at least. Because I have been living all wrong.

I am a go getter. I am disciplined and strong to my core. I love to be challenged to my limits. Tell me to run this far and I'll try and sprint it, just say I can't lift this weight and I won't stop till I lift that bar over my head. Tell me I can't keep playing soccer after 4 ACL surgeries and I'll defy all odds and do it. (This is not a wow your tough Heather or a yikes... cocky much?) No no, my tone is to share, to  be really honest about my strength. I am disciplined and determined. And my greatest strength had become my greatest weakness. I began to feel the need to prove to myself, to “them” that I am strong, capable and able to do it all, be it all. I believed the lie that the more you do the more you become. The more doing the more becoming and I wanted to become. Become the best, the strongest, the most capable, the do it all, be it all. But this mentality was leaving me weary and exhausted. If something needed to be fixed, cleaned, or changed I was going to do it. Don't show weakness, don't seem demanding or needy, he will leave you just like your dad. He will think you are high maintenance and boy I was determined to be the most low key easy going wife there was.  Don't show that you can't measure up, you won't be accepted, your place will be taken and they won't miss you. I believed the lies from the father of lies that my worth was found in what I could do and offer. 

And just then a petal fell.

So yeah, back to the flowers. These flowers that everyone brought over, were fully bloomed. You could smell their incredible fragrance from across the room. When you looked their way, you couldn't help but to stop and stare. Their beauty was eye catching, they were inviting, amazing, full of color and life and refreshment yet their petals were falling off.

And then the Spirit whispered, “You see Heather. You thought this flower was at its best. What it presents to you looks perfect, yet for it to stay alive, for it to grow in the ground, into real soil, not the artificial depth of a vase; if it wants to really grow and stay and be who I created it to be, then all of the petals must fall.”

And that’s exactly it.

I have thought all along that I have needed to compete. I thought I needed to show perfection and this capability to do anything and be everything people needed me to be or what I thought I needed to be, but oh how shallow that is. There is no depth there, its a facade, a mask. Like the stem of the flowers trying to dig themselves into hard, cold glass. 

Because when my roots are not in soil, I blossom quickly and fade all the same. I run out. I was living this pace of the world, the culture. Hustle, drink coffee, get it done, take the kids to do amazing things, work, work out, clean house, Instagram worthy pictures only, drink more coffee, no tv time for them, always engaging, always going, always working, go, go go. 

And these petals must fall.

So I am now on a journey. A remaking of my life or the way I live life. I invite you to come along with me. I think I am going to experience a lot of God’s grace, love, and I am going to be uprooted and replanted, and I am nervous and ready all at once. 
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Because I cannot keep living this way. And I am learning that my worth is not found in what I do, but my worth is found in what God did. 

I am ready to taste and see what life feels like and looks like living in that freedom. 

I'll be back soon.
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Much Love, 
  Heathery