by Alesha Sinks | Apr 28, 2019 | God's Word, Just Me, Poetry
I'm learning to see
That there just might be
More than one right answer
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I was less than five minutes into that podcast episode when I found tears springing to my eyes, heart beating faster in agreement.
It was me.
It was all me.
Everything she said about feeling this weight, this pressure to find and make the right decision, it was like she had looked inside me and was reading back what she found.
I've lived, and I still live, so much of my life under the fear of messing up. Under the fear of missing out. Under the fear of making that one wrong decision that unhinges everything.
And through the painful, beautiful, soulful work of others, that they are graciously sharing with the world, I am beginning to see that maybe God doesn't work the way I think.
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<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1556474370303-0RISX9JWMIJJO1UX58VK/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNZr331BLc-Rota1ZP1Yh3h7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0hReLB75oIvKxcDxwlnLXaYNPa96OWO5Z21xzWqpQF_bv3E39NLc0xdQYNJZ7z0n0g/IMG_4564.JPG?format=original" alt=""/>
Just maybe, He gives us far more freedom in our decisions than I think.
And
Most definitely
A bad decision is not near enough to unhinge God's eternal plan.
Yes
I can rebel my way out of God's favor.
Yes
I can make stubbornly, unwise choices that will lead me far away from who God designed me to be.
Yes
I can miss out on certain life experiences by choosing one thing over another.
But if I humble myself and seek God, I will not miss out on Him. No matter how many "wrong" decisions I make.
Because God is The Great Author.
An Author Who can write His plots to beauty and purpose and good despite the foolish blunderings His characters create when trying to write their own stories.
Because God delights to give us free will and the ability to choose based not on formal command from Him, but on the good desires He has already placed inside us.
Because God lavishes His goodness upon us, primarily, in the form of intimacy with Himself. And that gift can be given no matter where we physically are in life.
If we will just turn to Him.
If we will just humble ourselves to seek Him.
If we will just delight in His presence.
If we will just enjoy His goodness to us. His presence with us.
Oh to live in that space of freedom and joy and delight in Jesus. That space where my decisions can flow freely and confidently. Not necessarily because He speaks to me directly about every one, but because I am confident in His love and care for me, and resting in the trust that what He has already placed inside of me will guide my decisions as I draw near to His heart.
May we each learn to live in that space of freedom and trust.
Trust that He will give us everything we need to make good decisions as we draw close to Him in love.
Trust that He is powerful enough to accomplish His will in me and in the world regardless of my decisions along the way, as long as I am making those decisions in a posture of drawing near to Him.
I'm learning to see
That there just might be
More than one right answer
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1556474800457-C20XK06DCETYQQ7ZRHPC/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNiEM88mrzHRsd1mQ3bxVct7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0s0XaMNjCqAzRibjnE_wBlkZ2axuMlPfqFLWy-3Tjp4nKScCHg1XF4aLsQJlo6oYbA/IMG_4568.JPG?format=original" alt=""/>
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Apr 2, 2019 | Blogging, Just Me
Hi friends,
I wanted to share with you a project I’m starting tomorrow.
The 100 Day Project
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The 100 Day Project is a creativity challenge. Many people do this on their own, and some as part of a group. There is a large community of people that I will be joining to complete the challenge beginning April 2nd and finishing July 10th.
If you follow my Instagram (@aleshablessed), you may remember that I participated last year. I did 100 days of storytelling, with the goal of telling short stories about my life everyday, in order to grow and explore my storytelling ability.
Although I stopped participating in the challenge around day 50, and I didn’t even complete every day up until then, I loved it. I felt my confidence, and I think, my skill grow throughout the challenge.
This year, I am taking on the challenge again, with the goal of finishing…not completing every day. But keeping on until the end. And my creative goal?
100 Days of Poetry
I plan to write a poem every day for 100 days, about whatever I want.
I have been writing poems since elementary school. I used to carry one of those tiny composition notebooks around so that I could spend the minutes waiting and the minutes in the car scribbling down tiny poems about cows and trees and whatever else ten-year-old Alesha thought about.
I’ve always thought my writing somewhat reflected that poetic bent from my childhood. But lately, I’ve wanted to lean in to that a bit.
And I wanted to write and actually share it again. Regularly.
If you want to follow along, you can join me on Instagram or wait and see the poetry “round ups” I post on here.
I hope, maybe, the poetry will inspire something in you. A reflection. An emotion. A prayer. A poem of your own.
I’m going to try to write more than just poems for the next four months, but even if I don’t write anything else, I am praying that the poems do the same thing all of my words are intended to do…
to reset your perspective with truth.
What is something you were obsessed with as a child that you would love to revisit? Why not?
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Jan 22, 2019 | God's Word, Just Me
So we’re three Monday’s into the New Year and maybe we’re just starting to realize that a New Year and a few resolutions jotted into a fresh planner doesn’t automatically result in a new you.
A new me.
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Maybe you started this year full of hopes and dreams and prayers that this year would be different. Prayers that a change in the calendar would bring that change into your life you’ve been waiting for. That a shift in the date would bring a shift in the winds of life, a shift in the temperature of your soul.
How many of us have started this new year wanting nothing more than to make a clean break with 2018 and step into 2019 fresh and full and vibrant and new?
But maybe, as the weeks of this year have begun ticking past and a steadily increasing pace, you’re finding the fresh and full and vibrant and new of a new year escaping you. You want a fresh start and a clean break, but you can’t seem to get there.
You want to leave 2018 in the dust, but it is the dust and the dust is in your hair and your clothes and probably your mouth too, because dust tends to just get everywhere and hang on.
I feel you.
And it’s okay.
Because we can’t always walk into fresh and free as easily as turning a page on our calendar. The past clings to us and all the new and different we can muster can't completely shake off the dust of past mistakes, past hurts, past regrets, past pain, past loss, past heartache, past decisions, past moments that hang on as memories, whether we invite them or not.
Maybe today already, just three short weeks into this fresh start, you’re feeling the pain of the past clouding your fresh start.
This year, like most every new year, I’m tempted to think that this is the year. New year, new season, new me.
But I also know the truth.
There is no new me without a dying of me.
Let me say that again. Differently.
There is no new me in the new year without me dying to myself in the new year.
Dying to old habits.
Dying to old thought patterns.
Dying to old fears and insecurities.
Dying to my selfishness and self-absorbed tendencies.
Dying to a purpose of living for me so that I can come alive to my God-given purpose.
And Ann Voskamp says it best…
“There is no growth without change, no change without surrender, no surrender without wound—no abundance without breaking. Wounds are what break open the soul to plant the seeds of a deeper growth.”
The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life
And a new you in the new year might not sound so wonderful when you stop to take a hard look at what it takes to make you new.
It took a Savior, leaving heaven’s perfection to wrap himself in earth’s fragility.
It took a God-man stepping into our wrong and shame and bearing it all on His perfect shoulders.
It took Jesus, the flawless sacrifice, allowing His body to be broken so that our brokenness might be healed.
And not just healed, but repurposed for glory. His glory.
This new you might sound hard and ugly and painful. But it is worth it.
This brokenness, this dying to self, is nothing to fear. See we don’t become new and whole and healed by ignoring the past, the pain, the struggle. We don’t become new by doing a hard reset on everything we don’t like about our lives with the flip of a calendar page.
We become new by allowing the brokenness to come and taking the brokenness to the Healer.
We become new by dying to ourselves, our rights, our opinions, our privileges, our desires, so that in our dying we can be made new.
If you are plunging forward into this new year just hoping against hope
begging God for a fresh start
for a new beginning
for a chance to leave the pain of the past in the year that’s gone
or maybe wondering how to leave the dust and pain of the past behind when it is clinging so tightly to every broken piece of you
remember that all you need to bring into this new year is your brokenness.
Be brave enough to bring your brokenness into 2019 and take it to God who is the Great Healer.
There is healing in the brokenness.
There is growth.
There is change and abundance.
There is a new you.
But it is not found by ignoring the past.
It’s found by digging into it with the One who is in the business of redeeming broken pasts. The One Who is in the business of taking death and turning it into life. It’s found by allowing yourself to be more fully broken, so that all the bits of you that need to be left behind can die, and so that God can pull beauty from the ashes, refashioning the broken bits of you and me into beauty and glory and…new.
{If you have more questions for me on this topic or are curious about this God Who restores and redeems brokenness, feel free to email me by clicking the mail icon in my blog header. I’m praying that you can, through your brokenness and God’s help, become the new you that God desires to form you into, in this new year.}
Happy New Year
by Alesha Sinks | Dec 29, 2018 | Just Me
A few weeks ago I wrote about that journal. The one I call my “When He Speaks Journal”.
Another thing that journal holds is my end of year reflection and upcoming year’s goals.
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Last year, I skipped it. We had just taken the first step in what would prove to be a year long journey of pain, healing, brokenness, growth, and heartache. I felt so lost in life at that point last year that I couldn’t bring myself to look back too much or forward too far. In fact, it felt impossible.
Now, a year later, I’m still broken and still healing in many ways, but I’m also feeling a new strength. A deep and quiet strength. A firm bottom under all the unknown. Or perhaps, what I am really feeling is a firmer faith in the Strength Who was there all along.
So this year, even though in some ways life feels just as uncertain as it did a year ago, I’m going back to the habits of reflection, intention, and hope.
For several years now I’ve been using Lara Casey’s method of reflection, evaluation and goal setting. Each year, in blog post format, she has tenderly guided me through this challenging process, this deep work in my heart and soul.
It’s not easy or fun, this reflecting. This looking back and evaluating. This digging deep and getting really, truly honest with myself and with God.
I know that for my looking back to truly guide my moving forward to growth, I must wipe away of all the little pretenses I set up around my own heart so that I can see clearly who I am and the habits that shape me.
This process of reflection and evaluation can be quite painful if it is not surrounded in immense amounts of gospel truth. God’s truth. Even then, it can feel hard. And vulnerable. And uncomfortable. And too much. And discouraging. And shameful. And not worth it. And…painful.
But I have seen the value in it in my life and soul.
So I can detach myself from the painful emotions connected to looking back in honesty, because I am held by a God Who loves me fully, although He knows me fully. I can step back and ask God to show me what He sees in me, the good and the bad, then in humility I can ask Him to show me how to walk forward in righteousness and faithfulness.
This week I’m slowly going over the past and present to evaluate and pray and reflect. Soon I’ll start the planning and dreaming and praying for the future. Seeking to uncover what God is guiding me toward. What He is calling me to.
I wouldn’t have done this on my own. I’m too impatient to look back. Too prone to questioning myself and obsessing over the past and it’s mistakes to reflect.
So I’m incredibly thankful for those who have forged a path before me. Those who have wrestled out the truths and patterns and methods that produce to healthy introspection and reflection, planning and intending.
If you need a gentle, grace-filled push to spend the time and do the work of reflection and planning, join me. I’m writing these steps and my own answers out in that same journal. Well, a fresh one, intended for the same purpose as before: to make note and take note of when He speaks to me, so that I won’t forget.
What better way to start 2019 than with reflection, intention, hope, and the awareness that I am held by a God Who loves me fully, although He knows me fully, and Who will lead me into righteousness and faithfulness as I seek His heart.
by Travis | Dec 3, 2018 | God's Word
It’s easy to sit in church on Sunday and believe.
It’s the going home and wrestling that belief out into our hearts, actions and our everyday lives throughout the week that is the challenge.
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It’s easy to hear truth preached loud and shout our amens with passion.
It’s the painful and broken amen required of us that is the challenge.
It’s easy to sing the words proclaiming desire for God to build our faith.
It’s the actual taking those steps of faith when everything feels unsure and unstable and unsafe and unseen that is the challenge.
It’s easy to love God in the moment of blessing and rescue.
It’s loving God in the moments right after your world has crumbled to pieces, after God’s promises seem to have come up short, after all hope seems lost, that is the challenge.
It’s easy to plan and prepare for some hard obedience, full of faith in God’s care and call.
It’s the crushing moments of isolation and discouragement as you walk in your obedience day after day after day that are the challenge.
It’s easy to live out our faith in our heads.
It’s the actual speaking of words and reaching out of hands and committing to actually following through that is the challenge.
It’s easy to see a problem from a safe distance.
It’s the going all in with your heart, the letting yourself be broken over sin, the actual confession and repentance and change that is a challenge.
It’s often easy see and feel.
It’s the doing, the living, the walking out the truth day after day after week after month after year and
never
giving
up…
that is the challenge.
And that is the goal.
So often we make our goal the moments of feeling or seeing or hearing the truth, instead of the long work of living and doing the truth.
I’m guilty of this kind of thinking.
So are you.
We all are.
Will we read these words and nod our amens and move on with our lives? Or will we do the work to press these truths deep into our soul?
Will we do the work to put reminders in front of our hearts and our eyes day after day?
Reminders to keep on.
Reminders of the what and the why.
Reminders of the Who.
Reminders to dig in and press in with our whole hearts, not just with our ears.
It’s easy to hear and plan and think and know.
It’s the doing and the living that’s the challenge.
Be blessed
