In the last episode, I talked about Grace for the growing…and it was a short little episode that I stopped myself from going on with because I really wanted to take in that one thought.  Giving yourself grace for the growth taking place in your life as well as giving those around us grace for the growth that is taking place in their lives.

And at the end of the episode, I encouraged you to stay with it and I had just mentioned how instrumental writing and journaling are for me so you might have taken the encouragement to stay with it to just be talking about journaling this spring and it was partly that because I wanted to remind you that you aren’t behind if you’ve missed a few days… or weeks…life is a journey through seasons and sometimes our writing will experience the ebbs and flows of our lives and that’s ok…

But when I said stay with it the other very connected part of that was meaning stay with the growth that is happening in your life.

I was starting to say that I feel like I’m experiencing a lot of growth this season and ask if you are too but then I was reminded that we are always growing or maybe I should say we always have the opportunity to grow. 

If you are living life it will always provide us with opportunities to learn and grow. Even though I will say that growth can look different and we can have more opportunities in certain seasons of our lives.

So where I stopped in the last episode around giving ourselves and others grace in the growing process led into diving deeper into staying with the growth thought I ended with…

Staying with the growth means staying in the stretch…

And that typically means experiencing some discomfort…and discomfort is a kinder gentler word …many times pain is the only thing to describe what we are growing through…

And our natural human reaction or impulse when we feel pain or discomfort is to pull away and stop whatever is causing us to experience the pain.

So my question today is Are you staying in the stretch or pulling away?

Are you feeling growing pains in areas of your life in this season and growing and or are you pulling away to ease the pain and discomfort you are feeling?

I know we’d rather this not be the case but pain is usually the portal through which beautiful things come to be…

As much as I have not wanted this to be true I have found this to be true over and over in my life.

I know many of you listening have experienced childbirth and have walked and labored through carrying a child and giving birth to a baby. 

And I think most would agree, even with the easiest of pregnancies you will experience discomfort and mostly likely extreme pain.

I carried 5 children and even though the carrying part leading up to the birth was not too bad compared to what so many experience with different issues I still felt uncomfortable and different and not able to fully function in my body as I had been. And then all 5 births were totally different experiences with surprises and unexpected turns …

And these experiences came to mind when thinking about pain bringing beautiful things to life.

Why was I willing and excited about going through this uncomfortable and painful experience 5 times ….because I knew what was at the end of the pain.

I was willing to be uncomfortable for a season because I knew what was at the end would be worth it.

This brought up the question … do I have this same expectation and hope on the other side of the growing and stretching that God is working in my life in this season?

Am I willing to stay in the stretch and allow the Holy Spirit to teach me and challenge me and bring growth and life out of the uncomfortableness that change and growth can bring?

By the grace of God many times I do, but I’m sure I am not even aware of all the countless missed opportunities where I felt the sting of discomfort that growth can bring and I pulled away and distracted myself which is so easy to do in order to not deal with or feel or respond to what was in front of me.

This made me think about how often we are not willing to face discomfort and pain unless we are forced to.

Back to pregnancy and birthing experiences…yes the end result was front and center in moving through any discomfort and pain but the reality was also that there was no option but to keep pushing through and moving through the pain.

When you are in the middle of the months carrying the child they seem multiplied and that due date seems to keep moving further away from your reach haha But you can’t rush it… and we try … especially at the end we are trying all the things to get things moving …

This baby is growing inside of you and you can’t rush the growth and produce the new life that is to come. It’s all God and miraculous.

I have to wonder in our human tendencies to avoid pain… would I be tempted to say it’s too hard and declare that I can’t do this in the middle of labor if I thought it would stop the pain?

Just like in painful or hard circumstances that we all walk through…we pray to not have to continue in them. We ask God to change them…when his desire is to change us in the midst of them.

Growing is hard and beautiful and painful and life-giving!

Let’s keep growing friend.

There is hope and life and joy at the end and in the midst of your pain.

I did want to mention to those of you that listen to the podcast but don’t follow on Instagram or receive emails that I recently release a Spring Collection of lined notebooks and one dot grid journal for those that like that.

It has been so long that I could not even tell you when I didn’t have a notebook or journal that I was writing in. and it’s not about the notebook or journal (although these are cute if you need one haha)  so many of mine were and are regular wired compositions books. The point is getting still to write out what you are thinking and creating a space for the holy spirit to speak to you and being able to process out the season you are living. 

Slow down and get it out of your head and into the hands of God allowing his spirit to speak over yours.

I was just talking about this the other day with someone that was saying they don’t like to journal and I was explaining that I use the word journal interchangeably with writing. Every day and every page looks different to me. As it will for you! The notebook I have with me. On my desk, in my purse, on my bed…it’s usually wherever I am and I am using it for all the things… writing down things I need to do ( even though I do have a calendar that I use for some of these things) sometimes I’m needing to make a longer list of planning something out….and the next page over can be a thought about something I felt prompted about while driving home from Publix... Your notebook needs to be a reflection of your heart and mind.  Not mine. There’s no right or wrong way to write and journal and you still might be saying that this practice is not for you but I”m still going to be trying to convince you to give it a try and do it your way and just see.

Ok, I’ll stop there… there will be links for all the things in the show notes as usual and a reminder I love hearing your takeaways from the episodes or how God is using the seasonal journal in your life this spring so you can shoot me a dm on Instagram or email me at susan@susanbeth.com.

I’d love to hear from you! 

I love you guys and I’m standing with and for you for strong, beautiful growth in your life!