Stepping Up – 30 Days of Hustle – Day One

 

*About the picture…so often I used my outsides to define myself rather than the truth of God’s love and word.  I didn’t think I mattered if I didn’t look the perfect part.  I was a fragile paper doll most of my life.  I have been stripped of all the things that I thought made me have any value.  In truth, fashion, my looks and who I was with were all that I thought I had.  That is the magic word…thought.  The real truth is, I have so much more.  This was taken up in Flagstaff.  It caught my eye while I was having a snack with my love.

This is going to be quick.  I have begun reading 30 Days of Hustle from Jon Acuff and have been tossing back and forth what I am going to do and why.  You’d think that this would be really easy.  We all know changes that we want to make.  I know I do.  There are plenty of them.  It is the why that kind of made me stumble.

Part of the 30 Day Hustle is not just to find my what but also my why.  So first, after much deliberation my what.  Initially I wanted to make blogging my focus for the next 30 days.  This was simply because I really have had this guilt thing going with my blog.  I used to love, love, love blogging, but then it got away from me.  I don’t know if it is pressure or what, but something held me back again and again.  I suppose comparison and just not feeling good enough was a big part.  Either way, a big part of me wanted to focus on my blog for 30 days and give it all I got and then the other side of me also thought of the other things that I really need to do.  Things like work out, eat right, clear up the clutter in my home, and set up a garden.  All of them clamored for my attention too, and honestly all of those had a lot of great whys attached.  Yet, in my heart my blog was the thing that kept floating to the surface.

And this is why.  I think I am absolutely terrified of working on my blog.  I am terrified of doing something wrong.  I am terrified of messing things up.  So I write and then I run.  I let some little voice in my head say that I am not good enough to write here.  I gave that voice a lot of power.  More often than not, I have agreed with that voice.  Well tonight, I am telling that voice to shut it.  I am still terrified, but I know this.  God put writing in my heart from an early age.  I drew pictures to tell stories before I could write a word.  I may never be perfect and that is okay, because I am not perfect now.  My Jesus is.

A little over a year and a half ago, I had a pretty dramatic change in my job.  A change that actually left the door open for me to explore writing more.  It was a painful time, but I know God meant it all for good.  I know that God meant it for me to take more time to write.  He opened some doors for me that only he could.  I stepped through some.  And then…and then…I ran.  I ran in the other direction.

My why is simply this.  I am running forward again.  I am going to run back through that door and I am going to keep running for the next 30 days, because God gave me an opportunity and I know He is giving it to me again.  What will that look like?  I guess I’ll find out more when I work on day two of 30 Days of Hustle.

Now I run with joy, because I know that this is between me and God.  I surrender it all to him.