Silence of the Blog

You may have been wondering where I've been the last few months...
In case you didn't know, my husband and I moved to another state. My husband started a new job, training to become an aviation mechanic through an apprenticeship. Honestly, that's the whole reason we started this blog, to catalog and process this journey of faith in God and following his calling to spread the gospel to all people around the world. God led us to choose the airplane as the means of getting to all those people.
Another major life change happened in the last few months. I found out I was expecting our first child on our anniversary, two weeks after moving to a new town, new state, new everything. Only Walmart was familiar in this new place. I'm grateful we had two previous opportunities to at least meet the people we would be working with in our mission organization. I knew names and faces of the people who would become our community. Still, there have been a lot of people to get to know: neighbors, church members, pastors, doctors, dentists, chiropractors, etc.

There could be a few reasons why I've struggled to post a blog since August. Let's be honest, I've written some but they may never make a public appearance. The most common reason is that I'm not listening. You may have noticed that my blogging style tends to lack the basic details of life, family, schedule, daily stuff. Instead, I unleash my ponderings on the meaning of life and the perspective lent from God's Word to help me understand my life. I like to meditate on the Bible through my writing. The traditional definition of meditate means "to engage in thought or contemplation; reflect". The Bible encourages meditating on God's words day and night. Typically, if there is no blog on my brain and nothing flows from my fingertips onto the screen, I have not been meditating on or listening to God's Word, the Bible.

Another reason that often hinders my thought process is my emotions. Sometimes I've been reading God's Word and trying to listen to what it teaches me about life, but my emotions cloud my perspective and drown out any other thoughts or understanding of life. It's been an emotional transition into these life changes. So much change is demanding and exhausting. Even my new role as a stay at home mom is an adjustment filled with emotions.
Early on, my husband would complement how well I'm adjusting. I think a fellow missionary warned me that the rollercoaster was slow getting started and all the upheaval of these changes may not hit for a few months. We are in the thick of the upheaval now, maybe on one of the downhill sides. The emotions of loneliness, distance and isolation, challenges in a new situation, stress from learning new expectations, and struggling to fulfill those expectations all clamor for attention. God is still there, speaking through his Word, singing to me in a praise song, or demonstrating his love through his children.  I just need to stop and listen.
How thankful am I that our God speaks whether I am listening or not. In the Bible, I find many examples of how God spoke to his servants, to those who feared his name and called on him in prayer. Sometimes, God spoke through thunder as the glory of his presence appeared so that all who saw would fear his name. Sometimes, he sent angelic or human messengers to share his plan or bring answers to a specific question. Sometimes, God spoke in a still small voice to reassure his servant of his presence. Now, God speaks through the truth he has preserved in the Bible. His Word is eternal and the truth is unchanging. All I have to do is pick up my Bible and read it, dwell on his words of truth, and allow it to change my thinking, my feelings, and my worldview from lies to truth.
One thing I have been listening to the past six months is how to let the Bible expose lies and reveal truth. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to complete a seven week Bible study with other ladies in my community. We studied the book, "Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free." I was challenged and I noticed my perspective on life began to change as I invested time in replacing the lies that influenced my thoughts, feelings, and actions, with truth from God's Word. One of the results is that I feel my mind is primed to listen once again. I am ready to hear truth from God's Word and be changed.
I'm listening, God...