Let Your Life Breathe
May 14, 2024
Sometimes, I think about the Shandice from my 20s. I think about how often I felt paralyzed in spaces I was purposefully placed in to explore with hope and wonder. Those spaces didn’t always look how I envisioned they would. So, I couldn’t help but think I was failing at something or falling behind, which caused an inner tension: the urgency to catch up and be where I thought I ought to be while still trying to figure out how to make it happen.
It’s funny how things change.
As I make a home in my 30s, I don’t have those feelings anymore. And that’s not to say other thoughts don’t occupy my mind at times. But so much of what I once struggled to understand resolved itself as I lived a little more life. Revelation and peace were birthed out of my decision to intentionally live, be present in my day-to-day, and see things for what they truly were beneath my fears and doubts.
I realized
I was never behind. I was just on time.
A lot of the pressure I felt was self-inflicted or induced by the voices I keenly lent my ear.
God always had a plan for me, even when I didn’t see it.
Seasons of isolation are necessary. As lonely as they feel at times, they teach us how to sow seeds with God and tend to the fields we are called to.
So much has been birthed out of the seasons I secretly prayed away. And the other side of those seasons has revealed to me that:
Restoration is possible in the places we have written off as dead and infertile.
Jesus is alive and well in those who believe–and to the courageous women of God who refuse to be held hostage by their past, pain, and insecurities, big and small things are happening, and both are transforming our lives for the better.
I’m embracing the art of being present in the middle of life, in the middle of seasons, in the middle of lessons learned, because I am tired of running after destinations when the journey itself has so much to offer.
In this era, I’m letting my life breathe. No more suffocation, no more feeling behind, no more running ahead, no more forcing things.
I am being patient as I continue to unravel and meet myself in new ways.
I am being kind and compassionate with each step I take because I know each step holds weight, and sometimes the heaviness hurts.
All in all, I am well.
I am still writing.
Still learning, growing, healing, and all the other things.
I am enjoying the me I worked so hard to become while continuing to thank God for keeping me in the areas “hard work” alone could not sustain.
I’m just so very grateful for it all, and I’m okay with waiting to see the next chapter unfold, as there is still so much to this story of mine.
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I guess the takeaway of this check-in is; that may we all allow our lives to breathe and fully form into all it can be without the need to rush and manipulate the areas that don’t make sense right now. The answers will come when it’s time. But sometimes they won’t. Sometimes we just don’t need to know the “why, how, and when” of a thing. But trust that we will be equipped with what’s required to continue taking steps forward.
Let your life breathe.
And most importantly, allow God to continue breathing new life into your lungs. Breathe in His truth and expel the lies.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
What a gift it is to breathe.
Shandice xo
