When God clamps your tyres.
When God made me new last year, I stopped selling all of my offerings.
All of them.
My books.
My courses.
Entire bodies of work.
I stopped writing the book I was writing, and stared confused at the others that had taken shape over many years, sitting complete in google drive waiting for me to do something with them.
Are these really never going to see the light of day?
It is so tempting to want to go back to what is familiar, to what’s been done, to what I have been ‘known’ for… and yet whenever I go to touch those projects or write on those topics I feel God clamping on my tyres and holding my tongue.
No.
I read the other day, the term ‘progressive sanctification’. It’s a term that, in my own words, means the process of God chipping away at our hearts, our minds, our lives so that we can become more of who we truly are in His image, and less of who we think we need to be for the world. It’s life after we become new.
It is so tempting to want to please the world.
To want to be cool, and likeable to those in it.
To want to return to the familiarity of what I have always known and who I have previously been.
To post things I know will be popular on Instagram.
To enjoy the anticipated affection I know will come when I strike the chord I know how to strike with my audience.
It’s tempting.
But every time I try to participate in what is not God’s path for me anymore, it’s like my tyres are being clamped, but it’s my tongue. My keyboard hands. My life force.
No, God says.
Sometimes I hear inside my head the loud popular message of marketing gurus, that says ‘you’re not writing because you’re self censoring. Just write it.’
There is a trend in the marketing world, of getting so ‘out of your way’ that you start posting your every thought, complaint, or vulnerable moment. When you’re not doing this, you’re blocked. Something is wrong with you. You need to stop caring what others think and just put it out there.
Self censoring is not the same, as God lovingly sewing your lips together, just for a moment.
Sometimes, it’s not time to blurt it all out or try to keep up with the high of self importance.
Sometimes, it’s time to step out, to bow down, to shut up, and to be refined.
It’s God saying:
I am refining you.
I am strengthening your voice.
I am putting you on a path to fulfilment and purpose and it does not look like the ones you have walked before.
It is time for you to bow, not to teach.
It is not your time to claim expertise. To stand on a soap box.
It is not necessary for people to listen to you right now, only necessary for you to listen to Me.
This afternoon my husband took my kids to a friends for a play so that I could rest (He’s a saint).
“Make sure you rest,” he said.
“Put on one of those dumb reality shows you like.”
“I want to write,” I said.
What I really wanted to do was watch a dumb tv show. As much as I’d love to sound holier than I am, my overactive mind is greatly soothed by absolute dumb-ness. I don’t do it often because I’ve become increasingly intolerant of blue light at night times and when else is a mumma going to watch that kind of cringe? Also, because it’s dumb.
Sure, I wanted a moment of zoning out to a cringey, stupid, reality tv show. God knows I could do with a distraction this week, even if it is as unholy as these dumb shows are.
But, even a medicinal dose of a dumb reality tv show feels abrasive right now. I know there is no true soothing there. Not right now. I just need God, and my people, and walks (and chocolate).
“I want to write” I said.
I’m not sure if I want to write because I really do have something to write, or if it’s because I still feel so uncomfortable with who I am if I am not giving my people what they came for, regularly.
Who am I if I am not her? Who am I if I go too long, without being her?
Will I lose their trust?
Will I lose my followers?
Do either really matter right now while I am so deep in it in my own life?
He said “You have written for years. You have worked for years. You need to give yourself peace in this last trimester.”
I want to tell you that I have entries coming on birth preparation, like I said I would.
I want to tell you all the things.
And also, most everyday recently I haven’t had the capacity.
Rather than dish on everything I have experienced regarding childbirth (and I will, still! I have so many on the go. Including ‘Why I’m not free-birthing’. Oh the suspense!).
Right now I am being prepared for my own third birth.
In every mental and emotional way possible.
Maybe, God is giving more to tell you.
I feel God wants me to let Him cradle me into a little ball and collapse in innocence for a moment, without racing to make sure I am ‘giving others what they came for.’
Sometimes there is capacity for both, sometimes there isn’t.
Sometimes what we want for ourselves, isn’t what God wants for us.
Sometimes God lets us entertain our insecurities, pursuing things out of envy, ego and familiarity.
Sometimes instead, God says ‘nah uh, not this time.’
I have been very quiet publicly and very busy privately.
I have been brought to my knees on several occasions this pregnancy.
I feel the kind of exhaustion that no matcha or ice bath could trick me out of (Matcha, hot chocolate, still good for self soothing).
I have cried more than ever before in my life.
I am seeing God’s sanctifying work not just clearly in my creative work but in my relationships.
He is making me face dynamics that just can’t continue.
He is making me feel the disappointment, hurt, abandonment that has been stored for decades in my body — so I can stop indulging it and letting it run my life.
He is asking me to stop looking for love, care and attention in places where it is no longer appropriate.
He is asking me to prepare to be able to give even more of myself to my children- there will be three!
Some friendships are dissipating, while others are being strengthened.
I have reconnected with my best friend from age 5 at a time where God knew I would need her the most.
Amongst the heartache, there is grace.
God’s work isn’t always gentle, and there were no promises that it would be.
But what a relief it is to feel the loving hand of God’s refinement.
What a relief to feel the strong, fatherly disallowance of my pursuits of paths that no longer bare fruits (and likely never did).
Trying to force ourselves to ‘go back’ to what is not our work anymore, feels like eating stale Tip Top bread and telling ourselves it’s as a good as a fresh sourdough.
We don’t have to pretend with God. He’s no dummy.
I hope this message soothes those who are being lovingly ‘held back’ by God. Tyres clamped. Tongue held.
May you give yourself to your refinement, trusting that God is not keeping you from anything worthwhile and that you can trust fully that when the time is right, your tongue will speak with a voice that is stronger than ever— you can trust that when it is go time, you won’t mistake it.
It is safe for you to rest into God’s arms.
It is safe for you to stop trying to maintain the position, or image you’ve valued for so long.
It is safe for you to trust that what is new is more fruitful and fulfilling and right, than what is now complete.
It is safe for you to trust the feeling of disgust, exhaustion, repulsion, or other you feel when you try to entertain paradigms that you have now died in you.
It is safe for you to stop following people who are confusing you and giving you ideas and vernacular that are not yours anymore.
Make no mistake, the temptation of the world is real. You will feel like you’re falling behind because you’re not speaking loudly, creating frequently, able to articulate yourself in a succinct insta bio, or making $89,000,000 a week as an affiliate marketer.
Remember, God is no dummy.
Don’t try to rush through your refinement or turn back to what’s no longer yours… just because you can’t see what’s next.
I’ll leave you now with a word.
Love, PK XX
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
(ESV)
This is so beautiful, honey. I really connected with what you were saying about God embracing you in his arms. That's a picture I've been given too. When my head is real racey and I can feel that familiar adrenal rush of over-ideation, I take a deep breath and imagine Jesus' arms enveloping me and I crumble into them. Ellisabeth Elliot is always reminding me on her old podcasts 'You are loved by an everlasting love, and beneath are the everlasting arms.' I speak to him and remind myself: 'You said your burden was light. I need that promise right now,' and he just melts me.
What an incredible work he is doing in you, beautiful. Beauty for ashes, joy for mourning... preparing you for all the ways he wants you to raise those beautiful children of yours in his promise. He never wastes the wilderness.
Love you love you love you xo
Wow I really needed this and resonated with it. I to am pregnant, this pregnancy comes after many losses and 2 having been in the second trimester. Everything about this current pregnancy has been eye opening. I didn’t feel called to talk about my experiences past and present. I went off socials. I’ve really lay in the thick of what pregnancy after loss is. As I near my 3rd trimester and get ready for this babe to come earthside and to join her earth living brother, I reflect on the past 5 years waiting for her arrival. The growth, the loss of life from my womb and loss of relationships as I grow into this next version of myself as mother. 💗