Started Wednesday but Finish Saturday Fifteen Freewrite

by my friend, Claire, at https://www.instagram.com/verse_images_by_hand/ 

Wednesday:

Oh, how beloved I am. How beloved anyone who reads this is. Claire just made this for me, or maybe she was on this verse already when I asked her for any pictures she had about our belovedness.

I will be introducing this to a group in Chicago at the end of the month. It will be nice to have an image to go along with it.

This is a freewrite. Something that I have not done in a very long time! 

Saturday:

I am trying to remember what it was that interrupted my freewrite on Wednesday, but here I am many days later typing away. I was in the middle of making a decision. I had spent much of Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning a bit stressed about a decision I needed to make about whether to 1) Do another leg of the Camino and 2) Tack on being at the Deepen II residency for people entering their training for spiritual direction. 

Out of the blue, the director called me to ask if I would help with the training. What? I have been supervising four women who have graduated from their program and are going through another year of supervision. I think that is good because they only get one year of experience during their regular training because the first year is devoted to spiritual formation. The program I was eventually trained in (having already been mentored one on one) starts you off doing spiritual direction right away, which I really liked! (Throw you in the water and sink or swim - all swim though.) 

So, I was willing to entertain it, but then I asked for prayer, and I think that is when John called to tell us that they were 80% sure that they were not going to be able to do the Camino after all because they might be moving in November so that John can learn Russian! That is so exciting and something we have been waiting for so long for him. I am excited that they will be out of limbo.  

So then we thought if John and Katherine don't go with us, we can do the Burgos to Leon portion by bike because that is the Meseta of Spain and flat and closer to Malaga where the residency would be. So, I looked into bike shops, trains/buses from Madrid or Malaga to the Meseta, and it looked pretty positive. Maybe? 

Well, Thursday night, I had a dream, and I was on the Camino and my bike fell off the trail and into the water along with my helmet, and I was trying to go out to the water to get them, but someone said I would get carried away with the current. 

I just woke up Friday morning saying, "No to both the Camino and the residency." (Sometimes people asking me to help them carries me away in the current of their agendas for me.) 

I asked for confirmation, and Nancy said unbeknownst to her, she was in her garden on Tuesday and right after I got the invitation to the residency and at the exact time she said:

You could not have known this but I literally sat down yesterday and was praying for you.  I asked if I should call you and God said, "Just pray!” 

After my Thursday night dream, I thought, "No, I don't want to do this." 

Then an hour after that, Dr. Myers's office called about my adjustments before my injections, and these injections require me to stop and rest for a few days, not go and bike the Meseta. 

Then I found out a few hours later that they wanted me on the 12th of October and not the 15th (like it was originally communicated). Well, my last injection is on the 13th. So that settled and confirmed it. (If that had been communicated originally, then I would have said no right away. But no matter, I loved the talk with the director. She is a lovely lady.) 

When I wrote Nancy to tell her my decision, she said:

Honestly, I quickly saw you under His care and saw a question:

'What would you like to do?'

It came very quickly. It was as if the yes would add stress for a season. An added adventure for sure but with added stress.

As an observer that knows you, I was hoping you would say no.

:) I RARELY have stress dreams anymore. Ever since I learned about dreams in my spiritual direction training, and I could name the theme that would often come up in most of my dreams (feeling overly responsible and people-pleasing), God healed me of a lot of anxiety. Paying attention to this dream made me hop out of bed and say, "NO!"

I also think God was giving me an inkling during one of the spiritual direction times when I led my directee through a memory of an experience of joy. I usually do it with them (and keep it to myself), and God gave me the memory of Delta giving us business class when they made a mistake with our seat assignment from London to Portland. It was such a joyful surprise, and it was also a trip where it was just the two of us, and God was saying that we needed that since our last couple trip was in 2019. We always love those times together, and since 2014, we said, "Let's do this kind of thing every other year from now on." 

So, we did England in 2016, France in 2018, and the Rhine in 2019. (This was all after no vacation for "fun" since 1991 - no joke - mostly going to California to help my mom and ministry trips.) But then COVID came, and we have also had more ministry adventures and the Camino with friends. I would not trade those, but it is time to plan something as a couple. 

So peaceful and able to devote myself fully to going to Chicago and praying through my new small group for the 2HC. That is really good. God is so good to direct and guide. Bye.