When life becomes unpredictable and unsure, it’s easy to scatter apart in panic, to come undone, be spread too thin, to forget who and where we are.
This is good for exactly no one. Change is not affected in the world by people who are flailing apart.
God always wants us to know it’s not too late to come on back – to be gathered back to center again.
So what if your next right step was to settle in right where you are and come on back home to yourself?
Sound strange?
Consider this – the only person you’re guaranteed to be with every day of your life is you. It doesn’t get much more home than that. So maybe it’s time to make some peace.
Links + Resources From This Episode:
- Dallas Willard
- Fil Anderson
- Tsh Oxenreider
- Psalm 139
- Find me on Instagram @emilypfreeman
- Get the monthly letter! emilypfreeman.com/letter
You are pastoring me, a pastor who needs shepherding herself into the presence of God. Thank you for this one particularly (as well as fame, faithfulness and the gift of obscurity). God immediately showed me how delightful it was to serve communion to our staff today and offer a short reflection out of time I had spent with Him with friends last night. It’s like I could see myself from the outside, receiving that ministry myself from myself. Does that make sense? Like I was really seeing myself. Thank you for helping me to see that gentle, pastoring side of me.
After I make my two lists, then what do I do with the information?
Should I use it to change my focus and activities in order to line up with where I feel the most like me?
Is it simply for my own awareness?
Do these lists indicate where my passions truly lie?
All of the above?
I have only listened to a few of your podcasts in the last couple of days. My friends recommended that I listen in and I am really touched by everything you say. You have an incredible gift and voice – you are like a balm to a throbbing wound!
You bless me so much with these, Emily.
Thank you for offering a challenge and for hope within that challenge. I am in that’s space now, trying to come home to myself. I’ll be listening again…and again. Thank you for sharing your heart with us.
Emily, my daughter is away at college and she is strugglilng. She is experiencing disappointment, confusion, loneliness, she has changed roommates & dorm rooms, her GPA isn’t where she thinks it should be. She said that can’t decide what she wants to do in her life. She is only 18, I told her she isn’t suppose to know what she wants to do for the rest of her life. I need Godly advise on how to pray for this Godly young woman….Teresa
Hi Teresa. I have a daughter that went through very similar circumstances your daughter is going through just last Fall. Keep offering that ear of listening. She will make wise choices. In the meantime, if you are into books, Stormie O’Martian has a book called, “The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children”, and Jodie Berndt has one titled, “Praying Scriptures For Your Adult Children”. These have both been very good in leading me into praying for my girl. It is hard to accept that at 18 years old the world wants us to call our babies adults. What is even harder is the fact that our babies want to be adults. Keep encouraging her, Teresa, in the ways of the Lord.
Emily, This morning I listened to episode 25 and 26 as I walked. My word for this year is connection. At first I thought this was more about connecting with others. But through you, reading Braving the Wilderness, and reading Silence and Solitude by Ruth Barton, I am finding I need to also connect with myself. The episodes were just what I needed to hear today especially the part about connecting rather than comparing.
I am trying to find the music you use on this podcast. What is the name of it?
Thanks so much for your encouragement on this podcast—it has been just the thing for me right now!
Thank you, Emily. I’ve listened to this podcast before, but needed it again today.💗
Thank you for your stories and your writing. Your words in #25 are “soul words,” not just a podcast.