Listening to God

Listening to God is not always easy. His voice is still and quiet, and unless you know what to listen for, you will miss it. With two small children, endless media bombarding all my senses, and all the noise, noise, noise that infiltrates my ears day after day it is almost impossible to settle down long enough to try and find God’s voice.

However, I believe God understands this about me and when he knows I only have a few precious moments of uninterrupted silence he will cram-pack as many things he wants to tell in the shortest amount of time possible. It sometimes makes me think (or doubt) is this really God revealing all these things to me? Or is is me trying to think of as many important things as possible before this precious moment of silence is annihilated? Then I will say to God, “If this is really your revelations to me, then please show me something to remove this doubt.” He has yet not to. Let me share an example with you.

We had planned to homeschool our children, then one day I became consumed with the idea of finishing my nursing degree. (Which is another story) So after discussing with my husband, we agreed that I could pursue my degree when the kids were old enough for preschool.  I also used to want to blog, but I became too consumed with what people might think of what I would have to say so I gave up on that idea too. I prayed about it for awhile, and I know I heard God say I was making the wrong decisions but I pushed Him away and didn’t listen. I was too afraid to go against the norm. Then I would pray again for “direction in my life” and it sounded a little like this:

Me: God, I just don’t know what the heck I’m doing or where I’m going in my life. Please show me some direction here!

God: Chelsea, I’ve tried to show you but you ain’t listening to me!

Me: Well, if that’s really what you want me to do. Could ya make it a lil’ more concrete for me? I’m still new to this praying thing.

God: Watch and wait my child.

First of all, God really did say “ain’t”. Secondly, he really did prove himself to me. What happened next was pretty darn cool if I say so myself. I entered a contest on a blog, Good Morning Girls to be exact, to win a ticket to go to a ‘Mom Heart Conference with Sally Clarkson’. I read a tiny bit about it and thought it would be fun to go to a conference about ‘mom-ing’, but I knew there was no way I would buy a ticket on my own accord though. But lo and behold, I won!

Apparently Satan didn’t want me to go, he put so many obstacles in my path to getting there it’s unreal. Tragic things at that. In the midst of it all that was going on, my prayer was still for God to show His direction for my life. The morning of the conference, which at that time I was NOT going, my cousin Jennifer texted me and asked if I would like to go with her. Desperate for something lovely in my life, I agreed and went.

I spent the next 48 hours with a bunch of blogging, homeschooling wonderful women. In two short words it was life changing.

Granted, not all the women who went were bloggers or homeschoolers or even a combination of the two. However, the women I hung out with and talked to did. If that isn’t God proving himself to me, I really don’t know what else is. Not only did he talk to me, he ran me over and knocked the wind out of me. God is BIG that way.

So here I am with my first blog post. I don’t know what is going to happen with this blog, what it’s going to ‘look’ like or even be about or anything else but I found a rare moment of silence tonight and God told me “to get up and go write” and for once I don’t doubt it’s Him and I obeyed.

Learning as I go,

Chelsea