The Driver's Seat

Since I'm starting to blog again, I should tell you that I've been wanting to start writing again for awhile. Nothing, like homeschooling, teaching your own children to write to awaken old places in your heart.  It seems like I often have a word of encouragement running through my head or a deep desire to turn a situation with bats and snakes in my house into an amazing lesson. However, recently that is as far as the ideas have gotten, just a place running in my head.  Maybe written down in a journal with a thought that they might be for later.  Then I started to realize that I was saying outloud that I wanted to write, that I wanted to share but that I was afraid.  It has taken me a little bit to process that fear is not from the Lord (I have often said I am not an anxious person, it's not my natural emotion).  So coming to grips with facing fear as an emotion has been a new journey to me.  A journey to see that fear was trying to alert me to something, but not something I needed to live in.

On a journey

I was afraid (and honestly still am) of criticism.  I have watched amazing women and men get blasted for their writing, be torn apart at the core over something big or something little.  I, quite frankly, was/am not willing to put myself out there for that sort of stuff.  I mean as a mom of 4 kiddos, I kind of have enough criticism and life shaping things to do, do I really need to write an open myself up to be criticized? The other fear or question is does anyone even care, will it even make a difference?  Along with fear, I have identified that whatever I do, I want to be a difference maker. I don't just want to be a gong making more noise is a world that is already so noisy.  My creator put that in me.  But it has gotten a little twisted.  Now I am prayerfully asking him, I am in His Word seeking the real TRUTH, as I have not been stepping out in faith and trusting him to take the seeds he has planted in my heart and allow him to cause growth. I will step out and faith and say God, use me to make a difference for your kingdom.

Have you ever unknowingly stopped growing, yet constantly feeling the plant wanting to grow forth and bloom? Could you stop today to take an inventory of who, should I say what, is in the driver's seat of your life?  Is it fear, is it pride? What can you do today to let Jesus be in the driver's seat and start enjoying the ride.