Learning to Quiet

Last month, I wrote for 31 days straight -- more or less.
That was twelve days ago and I have only written four times since then.
2 photography posts.
1 guest post{with a giveaway that is still OPEN, by the way!}.
And a Five Minute Friday.
I could not even manage another five minutes this past Friday.

It is not that I have nothing to say.
It may be that I have too much to say,
Or that I am just tired of writing,
Or just I needed a little break.

Emily P. Freeman, author of Grace for the Good Girl {which impacted my heart like crazy}, and Graceful {which is in my reading pile now}, wrote her 31 days on hush -- a journey in quieting her heart and soul to listen first. Lisa-Jo's Five Minute Friday prompt last week was the word quiet. My dear friend, Annie Barnett, just launched her Etsy shop called, Be Small Studios. Even Alene's words on how to find quiet in the midst of this noisy life showed up in my inbox this morning.

And at Allume this year, I felt like God was causing me to be still, to be small, to quiet my heart for at least THIS one special moment.

Or maybe just to do a deeper work still.

I have so many beautiful take-aways from that conference.
Some powerful personal lessons learned in the past couple of weeks
And just life ... beyond the lens.

I will get to those.
Probably.
But for now, in the midst of the day-to-day busyness, in the chaos that is my brain,
He is teaching me {I think!} to still my soul, to press into the anxiety of the moment, to sit WITH my questions {thanks for that advice, Emily}.

So I am here.
Waiting.
Living.
Loving.
And hopefully...
Quieting...

Pray for me?

Are you finding quiet moments in your day/week? 

Do you have a busy mind like mine? 

How can I pray for you today, this week?

Want to read the entire 31 days of story?

Click here to see a list of all of the posts, updated daily.

If you do not want to miss even ONE day, please subscribe 

at the top of this post by entering your email address.

Also linking up with these beautiful communities:
 Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday, Playdates with God,
 The Soli Deo Gloria party, and In, On, and Around Monday

31 Days of Story {Day 31} Coming Full Circle

So I could not break out of this inner quiet.
The soulful melancholy.
Not for long anyway.
{Read part 1 of this story HERE}

I would push the little extrovert out from her covered shell.

For moments.

Here.

And there.

And it was fun.

Do not get me wrong.

But mostly I felt a little off my game
A little insecure.
A LOT weird.
Kinda overwhelmed.

Until Saturday morning.
When I woke up feeling a little more settled.
A little more like myself.
I reached out to a couple of people I had not bonded with yet that I really wanted to, and we had a group lunch gathering that was just a blessing.

Then I talked to The Nester.
And cried.
For no OBVIOUS reason.
I even laughed as I cried because I felt so silly.
But she was gracious.
And kind.

But that weird up and down feeling inside returned.

So.
I stuck with my friend.
And we ended up in a room
with a couple of other ladies.

And this moment happened.
When one shared her brokenness
Her pain.
Her heartache.
And my spirit was quickened.
Because
I knew that space.
That sorrow.
That desperation.

Jesus opened my mouth
And talked through my vocal chords.
And right there in the Hilton Harrisburg hotel room.
We wept together.

We prayed.
And cried for breakthrough.
And then we introduced ourselves.
And laughed.

Because I did not know her
And she did not know me.
But Jesus knew his girls.
He planned this moment.
He had prepared my heart all weekend to be PRESENT
Here.
Now.

Not because the other ladies could not have handled it.
They are amazing.
And pastors' wives to boot.
So they were all over it.
But because His plan
Was to use me.

I could not be the Life of the Party at Allume
AND the Girl Who Could Recognize The Darkness
All in the same weekend.

Not this time.
It was not His plan.

There are seasons of LOUD
And seasons of QUIET
The quiet is not so easy for the extrovert

So I had to be pressed into THAT moment
And forcibly accepted my assignment for the weekend
even though it was lonely
even later
AGAIN.
When I found myself detached.

But then from that space.
I made two more heart connections, maybe even three, as the weekend progressed.
Right when I would feel sad and lonely and overwhelmed,
God would place me in the path of someone else
who needed that whispered attachment too.

I was coming full circle, back to the quiet little soul that had been birthed on the shores of the Caribbean Sea, back to the analytical calculations of this third-culture kid trying to understand the meaning of "belonging" and "time" and "goodbye", back to the deepest, truest, purest place where Jesus met this little missionary girl as salty breezes christened her tongue and mountain peaks eclipsed her vision, back where deep calls out to the fathomless deep, where my heart finds rest in a Secret Place called Home, in the shelter of His wings.

It was not the conference I planned in my subconscious little extroverted brain,
But it was the conference that HE planned.

Better than I could have imagined.

***

The past 31 days have been a journey in learning to tell my story.
It has been good.
And hard.

Some days I did not want to write.
A lot of days actually.
Sharing your story is vulnerable.
You give a piece of yourself away.
And it is scary.

What if no one reads?
What if no one cares?
What if I cannot do it justice with my written words?

But I wrote on anyway.
Because I knew that I must.
It was time.

I learned.
I grew.
I changed.
I am the better for it.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey with me. And if this is the first day that you are reading, I invite you to go back to the beginning and grow up along with me {quite literally actually!}.

This concludes 31 Days of Story.
But not the story itself.
Stay tuned.

With Jesus,
The best is ALWAYS yet to come.
You can bet the bank on that.

Want to read the entire 31 days of story?

Click here to see a list of all of the posts, updated daily.

If you do not want to miss even ONE day, please subscribe 

at the top of this post by entering your email address.

Also linking with Jennifer, Mary Beth, Ann, and Duane 
and the encouraging communities they have created here on the web.

In The Shadows

I have a fascination with shadow and light.

I try to capture the essence of what each moment means to me,

the beauty that I see there.

Sometimes I get it right, and other times, the picture cannot hold a candle to the reality of the now that I feel.

I have spent a few years living life amongst the shadows.

At first the shadow was small, apparent, yet not overpowering, but the longer it lingered, it seemed to loom larger until another shadow appeared, making the first seem insignificant. These two shadows vyed for the light, each taking more, in a battle to win the duel. And still yet another appeared, and then another, threatening to choke every shard of light from my life.

The war waged on, and I fought and fought to stand in the light, to hold my ground, to hang on so that I could fight again tomorrow.

And then one day, it was too much, and in spite of the warrior heart beating loud and true in my soul, I retreated into the corner of the shadows, sobbing and gasping for reprieve from these insurmountable foes.

The shadows are a scary place. Lonely, abandoned, heartbreaking....most people do not enter into your shadows with you. Sometimes they just cannot and other times like a scared, trapped, little animal we hiss and scratch at them until they just simply go away.

For me, shadow or light, it did not seem to matter, I still felt alone -- alone in my fight or alone in my misery.

And now, the shadows are still there, looming around me. Every day is a fight, sometimes hour by hour, just to push my face into the light and to SEE His goodness, to glimpse His grace.

And then there are days when I just fall down with exhaustion and anger. "Why does living in peace and joy and grace seem to be so daggone hard?"

So I pull into the shadows, for just a little while, but I have learned, am still learning....

The light calls to you, even while you are in the darkest of shadows.

The Scripture says it this way....

Deep calls unto deep...

Psalm 42:7

As a young girl, my artistic soul was always moved by these words, but only now through a bit of heartache and pain, do I truly understand the psalmist's heartcry to the Father. My whole being resonates with these words because I know that the deep is the one in a dark place crying out to the deepest part of the Father's heart.

Like mine does.

In the shadows.

I do not know what shadow is overpowering your life today. Maybe you are feeling the loss of something once held or never known. Maybe you feel you have never experienced your life truly in the light of day. May I encourage you to find your hope in Him? Not because it is a cliche or because it is easy. Not because I have it all figured out or know all the answers, but because the light is calling out to you. If you really listen, you will even hear it calling you BY NAME. I promise.

Why am I discouraged?

Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

I will praise him again—

my Savior and my God!

Psalm 42:5-6

Read the entire Psalm here.

I promise the encouragement and REAL understanding

from the psalmist there will blow you away!

And just one more thing....please know ::

You are not alone.

Wherever you find yourself.

In the fight or in the shadows.

I would love to hear your heart on this in the comments or in an email {lindseyfoj (at) gmail (dot) com}.

Linking up with Imperfect Prose on Thursdays with Emily at CanvasChild.com.

Project 365 :: Week 7

Day 43 :: Spring Blooms + Winter Snows = Sprinter ;-)

Okay maybe not....but it is kind of beautiful!

Day 44 :: I found a local store down the road from

where I work in small town Eldorado.

I had a yummy homemade chicken salad sandwich!

Delish!

Day 45 :: Valentine's Day with my baby

dinner at Cactus Taverna AND watching The Vow

Day 46 :: A REAL life glimpse - I struggle sleeping so

I have a pink eye mask to help block out the light or distractions.

So at 1:30 am, filled with energy, THIS randomness happened!

Day 47 :: I finally got the display organized at work.

It had been QUITE disheveled since the busyness of

the holiday season but I am delighted to see it back in order!

Day 48 :: An art exhibit evening with my sis. We were

inspired to create our own "photog" art.

Day 49 :: Jake Ray's Star Wars birthday party

I'm on a journey to chronicle my life with a picture a day for a year. I hope to discover the world around me in my day-to-day life in a uniquely different way as well as learn more about my DSLR to better capture those precious moments. Linking up with my friend Paige and others who are taking this challenge too.

Beauty in The Dying

The ill-tempered wind whips through me leaving my body filled with chills in its wake. The fallen leaves crunches conspicuously beneath my feet reminding me that I walk among the dying.

The scene around me steals my breath again and again with its sighing sorrow.

And yet thrills continue to shoot throughout my being as I take shot after shot of this broken, aging maiden, giving her best before she breathes her last.

What is it that draws me into the death,
the brokenness,
the sorrow,
the pain?

This beauty
This passion
in the face of certain doom,
she yet gives her best, her very best,
seemingly thinking nothing of herself,
but only of the fragrance to the world that her life,

and yes,

even her death bring.

She is not like Spring, whose vibrance and luster for life is contagious and infectious, holding promise, newness, redemption. Her beauty is not simply from the desire for life; it is from the living of that life. The joys, the laughter, the wonder, and even the heart breaks and tragedies.

Autumn knows what is to come.

Her wisdom flows from her breezes, her branches, her heartsong singing ballads of days gone by.

But yet....
She faces it bravely, putting on her most royal robes as a sign, not of surrender, but of purpose, of destiny.

She has surrendered.
She has fought the good fight.
She has kept the faith.
She has finished the race.

For now....
Only for now...

She reminds me to walk bravely into the desert, the winter, the quiet places
She opens my eyes to the beauty unseen in the dying.
The beauty that one can only see when brokenness became your anthem, your mantra, your identify.

But you survive....

Her beauty brings peace.
Rest.
Safety.
Home.

Proverbs 31:25 says,

"She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come."