Dear Friends,

You know how I’ve told you before that to obey is better?  Well, this just may be a lesson that I need to keep learning.

Obey.  I need to remember to obey.

God doesn’t give me instructions to keep me from fun or control me but rather for my good and my protection.

Case and point: I had a rough past year.  Nothing major happened but lots of little things adding up to frustrations and hard situations seemed to all happen within the past 12 months.  I’ve swung from being on top of the world and feeling amazing to some very low, hanging out in the pit, kind of days.

All of this and I have been a busy girl. Busier than I have ever been.  Knee deep in mothering 6 kids, attempting to be a great wife, an attentive friend, a small group leader, a blog conference planner, a blogger, a homemaker…. It’s been a lot. Things, important things, have slipped by me.  I had to do a lot of reassessing, changing and repositioning.  I had to stop and make sure that I was being filled up before I could go one. step. further.

Then I remembered something.  In the very beginning, when I began this blogging journey, I only ever started because God said “Write. Every day write.”  So I decided to take some of that writing and turn it into blog posts and here I am and here you are {I’m ever so amazed that you journey with me and I just love you!}.

Writing is what I am anointed to do. I know this because God meets me here where fingers meet keys and pen meets paper.  I feel it like a bubbling brook in my chest that is ready to spill over from my heart down through my veins and onto the page.  I bleed what I write and God meets me here when I do this thing I am called to do.  I feel more alive and more aware of His presence when I write than almost any other time.  It’s so incredibly hard to describe but I know when He is pressing things out of me to share with you.  I feel it all over.

But then I stop writing or I put off writing because I get busy and these other things are important too. But here is where my obedience comes in – when I write I am doing what God instructed me to do and it is blessed.  I am filled up in the pouring out of words.  God knows that I need to operate in this gift and anointing or I run dry all too easy.  I just need to obey this call to write.  I feel so very alive when I write. every day.

So here is the lesson I have learned and hope you will too: What is it that God has told you to do with your days and your time?  For me it is a 15-30 minute a day activity that fills me to the brim.  Is there something inside of you that has run dry because you don’t give it the time it needs for the anointing on you to flow out? What area are you gifted in?  You do know that you operating in your gifts is like giving the easiest gift you ever could right?  It thrills God’s heart and He fills you back up as you pour yourself out.

My hard year was made harder by my inability to remember the instruction to write. Now that I have repented and begun to walk in obedience again my heart, even in hard moments, is so refreshed and incredibly full.

Can I encourage you to consider your gifts today?  Have you laid them down?  Why not dust them off and tell us about them today?  I’d love for you to share!