I’m nearly a week in to a sabbatical of sorts. For the better part of April I am stepping back from the intense reading and writing schedule that I was on. While I’m still keeping with my Monday to Friday’s Teaching People How to Pray posts, and while my social media presence has not been much interrupted, behind the scenes I’ve been resting more, working less, with more hours than usual just silent before the Lord unloading all my doubts and fears and insecurities to Him.
I’ve been feeling very human. Yet I’ve done this journey of silence and of pausing many times before and so the sense of being really weak and unsure with everything, all ministry and vision and goals and plans tossed into the air wondering what might land back to earth, if anything, has me in familiar ground.
Time and again the Lord leads me, at least a couple of times a year, to put it all on the line so to speak. I meet Him at the table and out of my pockets and from within my briefcase and my notebooks, the many emails and overseas partnerships, the writings that are complete, the ones half finished, the ones still only in my mind, all this comes out onto the table, I push it across to my Lord and I remove my hands from it, all of it.
And as I sit back in my chair I am simply Cyndy. A simple woman from Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. A mom of five kids who likes to garden and create. A friend who enjoys many different kinds of people. A daughter who has ‘moved back home with her folks’ and leaves her tea cups as a trail through the house. A Nana who sits on the floor with her grandsons.
I don’t feel the teacher or the preacher or the prayer minister. I don’t feel the author or the speaker.
And as I sit before Him his fire works to further burn away my dross. All that is not necessary, a circumcision of my soul, is removed, shed, dismantled. I never know quite the work being done but each and every time I am transformed in my inner being. Every time I come away changed, never to go back again.
I don’t know where or who I would be without this, His amazing work in my inner being.
And now, a week into this pause I can feel the quickening just beginning. Like a child nearly ready to walk, or a woman just about ready to give birth, what has been silent and still, breaks forth in movement and momentum untenable so it seems; more than we can manage on our own, that is for sure.
Pieces are coming together and clarity is deepening about myself and Capturing Courage International and the work we are to be doing. The presence and favour of God lies thick and heavy on the ground. Good things are in the works and my spirit is settling into a profound gladness of my Lord; I simply cannot do what He is calling me to do without His might and power and presence.
It’s been hard taking my foot off the pedal so that he can put his foot on. It’s counterintuitive and scary as heck.
It’s been simple (but oh so hard) obedience to His Spirit that has me entering into this time.
I’ve a couple more weeks of pause. I have no idea what it holds.
We shall just have to wait and see.
Cyndy Lavoie 