Made to Move

A little over a year ago, I prayed what was a seemingly harmless prayer before the Lord: "God, teach me to be still and worship anyways". I didn't know the gravity of what I was asking, what my curiosity of a simple word would invoke, I just thought it sounded cool to say that "my word for the year is Selah".

A week later, I tore my ACL.

I had always been told that we get the choice: to either get on our knees before the Lord, or He will PUT US on our knees; I just never thought that I would be the latter. But there I was: the start of a brand new year, forced into a stillness I had never known before.

And the thing about stillness, is that it exposes in us all the things that we never want to slow down enough to see.

It shows us the ways we've fallen short, where we've failed to reach our fullest potential, it requires us to seek a new level of humility in letting others care for us, and it forces us to confront all the things we tried to run from.

On broken knees, there is no choice but to worship.

What followed this injury, was nearly five months of physical therapy and a full blown wake up call.

What followed, was the Lord radically wrecking my heart in the best way possible.

I sought selah with the Lord, in a way that I failed to do with "surrender", and began to undergo not just rehab for my knee, but for my heart. And in that discovered that I am capable of a far greater potential than I had limited myself to.

I can do more, go further, push harder than what I settled for - and I could start at that very moment.

I had the longest, busiest, most healing summer of my life, and strengthened and formed so many friendships that were healing to my soul. I entered a school year that brought with it a job transition and new responsibilities. I began trying to publish my novel, and work out more, and re-learn how to be comfortable in my own skin.

I learned how to be still before the Lord and be comfortable with it.

And slowly but surely, the pieces of me that got lost, were restored.

I was healing.

Selah was a year of restoration and resting in the Lord, in testing the trust I put in Him, and seeing Him never disappoint me or leave me once.

Every. Single. Time. He met me exactly where I was: in a chair in my living room recovering from surgery, in my bedroom floor questioning how I take hard steps, in the physical therapy gym through the encouragements of my therapists, in my fellow huddle leaders at camps who spoke kindness over my soul, in my parents who loved and supported me every step of the journey - He was in it all.

The Lord is good, and He is good on His promises, and when He says we can take Him at His word, that He will provide, and protect, and care, and heal because He is God and He is good - we can give Him control and choose to remain still.

Where He breaks us down, He will also restore. Selah.

Exactly one year after my injury, I got to be a huddle leader at Winter Recharge, and I got to stand before a room of huddle leaders and tell them that there is sweetness in the surrender.

And it was a year after my injury that I felt a new challenge be given to my soul: it's time to move.

You've had a year of rest - now it's time for action.

I want to be made moveable before the Lord. I want my steps marked by His will and His will alone. I don't want to move, until He's the one to tell me to do so.

I want kairos: life according to the Lord's timing. His perfect moment, and nothing else.

It's time to take action.

Happy New Year!

-Emma