Listening Series

I was very honored to be asked to speak for the ladies at our church this past Christmas season. I shared a very tearful version of these three main points, which I’ve made into their own blog posts. Here is the introduction:

Disclaimer: I am currently in the “crying” phase of transition. I have been in this phase for quite a bit. If you don’t know me, I was a single missionary in Brazil for 10 years, and then got married, and we returned to Brazil and served for 6 years as a family—having two daughters born there. Last month we returned from Brazil—still working with the ministry, but just from the states. It is a lot of changes. My crying doesn’t mean anything is wrong or needs to be fixed—it just means I am in the process of getting there. Crying isn’t a bad thing, and I really hope that it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable. I really do have things I feel are important to share, and I am so grateful for the opportunity.

I have been learning a lot about listening. In the Bible, the original word isn’t listen, but “hear.” And the idea of hearing is really closely connected to heeding—or obeying.

When it comes to God and the Bible, it is important to keep hearing together with doing, but when it comes to others or ourselves, we are admonished to use discretion.

I think maybe this is where can get off track with the whole “Listen to your heart” stuff: because yes, it is important to listen to your heart—but not so much to obey your heart. And I think we (I know I have) gone overboard the other way: if I am not supposed to obey my heart, than maybe I shouldn’t listen to it either. But our heart (our body as well) is a really important gift that God has given us—and part of what we need to live a good, godly life.

So I have been on a journey of learning to listen to my heart: without necessarily “following” it. In fact, that was the whole thing about leaving Brazil: I knew and know it is what God was leading us to do—but on the other hand, I knew my heart definitely did NOT want to leave.

For this conversation, I will define “Listening” as analyzing, digging into, and facing up to.

Sometimes—most of the time—life is so fast it is really hard to have time to listen (to others, and to yourself). I made my own daily devotional journal (we didn’t have a Christian bookstore/Amazon where I lived in Brazil), and I added the daily question of “How I my heart?” I found it interesting to stop and listen and write a couple adjectives each morning: like “hopeful, open, excited” or “Exhausted, anxious, closed.”

I’ll share 3 things to listen to:

• Listen to what breaks your heart

• Listen to what you put off doing

• Listen to what fills you with wonder and joy

NOTE: sometimes you get to places where you just can’t listen well, or have mental road blocks. That is why I suggest counseling to everyone. Caid and I are getting individual counseling—even if it is just a close friend scheduled at regular times, and marriage counseling together: because we know in all this transition it makes it extra hard to listen, and to share.