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   I get gut feelings about things. Most times my gut knows what the plan should be. (Is that why so many woman are all hyper-gut health? aka Plexus?) Even I don't know where to take it from here.

Anyway, them gut feelings, I've learned not to ignore em. 'cept that this time I wanted to. None of it really felt real. If it is real, woe is me. Because I'm not prepared. Yes, I am going to leave you in the dark and not tell you what my inside feeling is, because thats personal. But. That is where Isaiah 30 comes in.
Isaiah 30:15, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Hold the thought.

  I just watched the new Little Women. I fell in love with the story all over again. I've always been rather partial to Josephine. I understand her. Her reckless and slightly aggressive pursuit of life, her inability to be all things cultured and refined, her desperate need to write... it's all rather familiar. But one particular attic scene really got me. She was a different girl by then. Life had worn her, she'd tasted of the hard knocks life offers, she was tired of slamming through life by herself. I felt it.
I feel like that sometimes. Like I'm slamming through life, taking as much in as I can, I'm only young once they say. And that is true. But it gets exhausting.
   Beginning of this year, a phrase came to me while I was praying about the new year, and dedicating it to God. "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. Trust the process." Ok cool but like, what does that mean, God, cause what process do I need to trust....? And what do you  mean quietness AND confidence?
I never got an answer. It's hard, because I really like having an answer for my questions. I think that's part of the plan. I'm not supposed to know what the process is going to be. I'm not supposed to understand. I've just been asked to trust it. And in doing that, building off the trust I learned last year, not make a big deal out of life. Not stress it. Not rush it. Or push it. Or be anxious about it. But in quietness, take it all in. And in confidence go and do what God asks. I feel so entirely safe and happy, thinking about the picture. I think that's also part of the plan.

So many times I run from the things that scare me, I get in a big old huff about things that intimidate me. I get angry at the state of humanity and things I can't change. I do so many things on a whim. When I have to wait for something I cry and sigh. When I struggle to pray I feel like I'm not close to God. I get all in a tizzy trying to make sure I'm not drifting and becoming complacent. And the only thing that's really wrong is that I'm not quiet enough. I'm acting out and in the din of life, drowning out the little whispered reminders and requests from heaven that deeply enrich ones life. Even now, my heart literally yearns (I feel like a sliver haired prophetess when I use that word) to become the definition of the two words. Desperate, like somehow if I write long enough, try hard enough, pray long enough, and discipline myself more, I might be strong. I so badly want what is good and right and holy and sometimes I get so afraid I'm not getting it, and I nearly cry over the complexity of it all.
And then that little phrase taps me on the shoulder and plants its self in my peripheral.
Trust the process. Quietness and confidence shall be your strength.
I'm hanging onto it.
Hanging on like a monkey on a swinging vine.
Or like I hang on to old t-shirts.
Or what ever. But I'm holding on.
The process will always be there. And I want to learn to be all there too. Learning, growing, stretching, laughing, crying, eating, loving... the list goes on. I want to be there, confidently. Knowing I'm there for a purpose. Quietly, basking (what is with my vocabulary tonight I never use these words?!) in the presence of grace and truth. I want to be there, trusting my life and will to my all knowing, ever present, always faithful, God.