Recently my gorgeous little two-year-old Selah decided that she didn’t like being left at her usual drop-offs. Each visit to daycare, kids church or time with family resulted in an awkward wrestle with me trying to pry her little arms and legs off me as she screamed: “No, mummy, no!”

Heart-wrenching and very awkward.

On one of these emotional occasions, I had dropped her to daycare before going off to work for the day. As I headed for the door and walked the seemingly long walk down the driveway, her cries were still in earshot. Everything within me wanted to cancel work, run back, scoop her up and hold her close. Maybe I could just take her home and give her cuddles for the rest of the day?

Instead, I suppressed my natural instinct to keep her from feeling any pain and found myself feeling a little numb as I tried to shut down my ‘feelers’ in order to get into the car and head to work.

It was in this exact moment that I got a glimpse of how perhaps I had falsely seen my own relationship with my Heavenly Father in recent times.

After years of being in ministry, my husband and I had welcomed a chance to spend more time with our family in the last year.  However, there were still times where the lack of momentum in our new pace of life felt uncomfortable, different, unknown. At times (though less frequently now) there are still tears.

Was that it? Is Ministry done? Will there be something else one day? If so, when? What will it look like? God, are you listening?

I know You speak but are You listening?

Of course, most days I am grateful for the change and wouldn’t change a thing. But in the days where my humanity gets the better of me, there are times when I still grieve for what was and what could have been- sometimes the unknown is uncomfortable.

We all have moments like these; moments where we navigate life, sailing through the most part but still finding ourselves coming undone over whatever our personal struggle is (work, family, relationships, finance, disappointments, dreams unfulfilled…life). At times we know the tears are a waste; there is so much to be grateful for, but other times we resist the urge to ‘pull ourselves together’ and feel validated in our feelings. Sometimes despite our cries, God remains silent, appearing almost distant.

God, are you listening?

As I got into my car that day, I felt a peace as I saw how these two scenarios related.

As a parent, I had a bigger perspective than Selah crying as I left her momentarily. My leaving could be perceived to her as me not listening, not caring, but in reality, I knew she would be fine in two minutes. In fact, the whole experience would help her grow, mature and develop trust: when I leave, I will return. It was a season, and it would pass.

In the same way, my Father in Heaven holds a bigger perspective than I do. In my moments of tears and frustration, He was listening; in fact, it pained His heart to see me upset. But perhaps He too knew the whole experience would also help me grow, mature and develop trust. It was a season, and it would pass.

Seeing the correlation helped me trust Him more, trust what He could see from a Heavenly perspective. Of course, he had heard my cry, and He was near.

Are you crying out to God for something right now but feeling like He is not listening?

I pray that this story might encourage you to trust Him in that area and keep moving forward…

But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 NKJV

In love, Carly xx