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The Point?

3/3/2017

1 Comment

 
Last week I ended with a list of questions from Gordon Smith’s book, The Voice of Jesus, that feel designed for a fireside chat with a trusted friend while sipping tea. I have found that engaging in meaningful conversations with people who know me well can be very helpful as I seek to make decisions. It can also be confusing.
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I recall many a client sitting in my office saying some version of “I don’t know what I want to do but my husband/mother/uncle/sister/dog thinks I should…” I empathize with the tricky balance of weighing the input of others, not wanting to disappoint people and taking ownership of my choices.

I appreciate Smith’s perspective. He notes that while what we long for is to hear the voice of Jesus directing us, “Something else needs to be emphasized. No one else will make these critical decisions for us. They might try to do so, but they cannot. Vocation is necessarily something about which we bear personal responsibility.”

Nothing drives home the message that I am responsible for living my own life more clearly than chronic pain. People can be supportive and provide encouragement. Others can empathize and help out in practical ways but ultimately I had to be the one to quieten my spirit and attempt to hear how God wanted me to live each day.

“We choose how we will respond to this set of circumstances. And no matter how limiting a set of circumstances may be, we still can ask, how am I being called to respond to this set of circumstances at this time and in this place?”

My life since those pain-days has radically changed and yet these principles are no less fitting. Each day is a fresh opportunity to ask God what He would have me do with my time. “At this point and in this place, what is it that I am being called to do?”

With love and gratitude,
Shelaine

©2017

1 Comment
Rosabelle S. Birch
5/3/2017 08:04:34 am

Good questions for those of us who are not working and may not work again...What does God want me to do with my time? How does he want to use my gifts and skills? What do I do with this day? This is my world these days. Thanks for speaking into it! :)

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    In The Midst

    Author:
    ​Shelaine Strom

    I am a writer by circumstance, a career and life coach, instructor and speaker sidelined in 2012 by a broken-down jaw.
    ​

    I am a writer by design, one willing to venture down a different path in a season of pain and waiting, offering my words and watching God use them for His purposes.

    I am a writer by choice who documented the journey of pain, the decisions made around an invasive surgery, the miracles and the healing process.

    And now I am a writer, who also works with Food for the Hungry, and is eager to share stories of God in the midst of it all.

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