S7 E29: Choosing To Step Into A Summer of Living Freely + Lightly

Hey you Happy Summer!!

Yesterday marked mid-year for us and the official 1st day of Summer!

I know many of you have started in your She Is Awakening Summer Journal and if you haven’t ordered one yet you can find a link in the show notes.

This isn’t what I originally had planned for this episode but it’s what I feel like I should share with all of you listening.

I’ve been saying for a few weeks how excited I am about entering this Season of Summer and I am!

I am excited but I haven’t felt excited. 

And let me say right off this conversation is not about toxic positivity.

But I think like with many things we can often swing to the complete opposite side of a thought or idea when we see something abused

But I do strongly believe in truth.

Truth that keeps standing in spite of how it might be interpreted in the moment culturally.

And one of those truths is intentionally aligning my thoughts and life with the truth of God. which means not living by my feelings and not accepting or believing every thought that enters my mind.

And taking those thoughts and feelings that don’t match up and replacing them with the truth of what God says.

So back to what I've been talking about how excited I am about moving into the Summer season …YET, I haven’t always felt excited.

This feels important for me to share because I’m someone that does a podcast where I’m sharing things and I share things on Instagram and other platforms and I know how this works…

Because I fall for it too…all the time haha

Even though we totally know in our head that in no way can this post hold all of the experiences of this person's life AND YET

Our heart looks at the image and the words and creates a story.  And it’s not that the image and the words we see are a lie and not truthful…

They are just not complete… or the whole story.

And that's why I feel it’s important to talk about this.

I talk about us living life intentionally and this is a perfect example of that!

In the past few podcast episodes, I’ve talked about the spring season that we’ve just walked out of and how after all the growing and stretching I’m excited about moving into the season of Summer to have a summer sabbath.

So you can hear me saying I’m excited about moving into this next season thinking wow it must be nice to just flow excitedly from season to season connecting with God and journaling about how he is working in your life haha

Here’s the truth that I want you to hear. I haven’t “felt” excited...

I’ve continued to feel stretched in my life and felt tired and questioned what even matters YET!!! And here’s the really important part I want you to get…

And yet I have been excited about entering summer because that is where I have set my intention and my hope and my heart.

But I didn’t stop there…because I do know that my thoughts are just the starting point. 

I intentionally put action to faith.

I started reading Matthew 11 from my journal every day and sometimes more than once!!!

READ IT!

And spoiler alert if you don’t already know this…

But the truth and word of God is powerful and alive and you can’t take it in and it not change you!

So little by little learning and leaning into the rhythms of grace I noticed opportunities to experience and step into living freely and lightly.

Did you catch that I said “I noticed opportunities to experience and step into living freely and light;y”?

I had a choice …

I can notice but not step into and experience 

We get comfortable with what we would say isn’t even comfortable in our lives.  So what keeps us from moving towards this invitation of living freely and lightly?

I would guess the answer 99.9% of the time is fear.

Fear of what we don’t know…yet

And being comfortable with not having to know.

After all, isn’t that what faith is?

One of the weekly focuses in the summer journal is called “wonder and whimsy”  so I will be talking more about that this Summer

But I just thought about it because this is what we need more of in our life.

Being more childlike filled with wonder at all that God is 

And running straight towards that wonder trusting the whimsy of all the twists and turns knowing that he’s got us.

So today I can tell you that I am excited and I FEEL excited about running into this summer season with my arms and heart wide open 

Filled with wonder and hope 

For all the beautiful ways

My spirit will find rest 

And soar with joy 

In living freely + lightly