Wildflower Whimsy

Happy Monday Wildflowers!

How is everyone going in the ebbs and flows of life?

It was the anniversary of my Poppy’s passing this weekend. I was able to make a trip to his grave and reminisce over the life that he lived. He lived his life poured out for others. His legacy is beautiful, a literal gift to the world. Especially my world.

Looking back over this past week, I have realized that God has been teaching me about leaving a life-giving legacy. Let me just say, as I’m sure you know, that it’s amazing how many up and down moments one week can have! And how we learn to face these moments is creating the legacy that we will leave. All of these small moments, accumulatively make up the whole of our life – and so, the whole of our life’s legacy. It doesn’t feel like all of these moments matter, but I am learning that it is extremely important how we learn to navigate them. Who we are, and what we do – affects everyone and everything we come into contact with – negatively or positively – whether we know it or not. These current little moments make up the whole of our lives.

What legacy do you want to leave?

People who know me well, know that it has been a childhood dream of mine to live at the ocean. It’s always humming in the background for me to find my way to the sea. Like a real-life Moana – ‘it calls me’ (not in a literal sense, but this is how it feels!). There have been many times in my life where I have just wanted to up and move there – especially when life has felt heavy and hard – as if moving might solve all of these things and everything would be better by the ocean.

The beginning of this week felt especially heavy and hard. And I was feeling pretty ‘stuck’ in the life cycle we were in. Then I was reminded of this childhood dream of mine that still ‘isn’t’ due to many factors and choices we have been intentional about – confirming these negative thoughts I was experiencing of feeling stuck.

Now I know that a move wouldn’t fix my life, I think that this has just been where my brain goes when the goings hard and life feels like would just be easier at the beach! I poured all these feelings and different heartaches out to God. Praying for Him to take and guide my life, to grow me, and asking Him to be my Shepherd so that I might walk in His steps.

He spoke to me, and it changed the narrative of my entire day. He said many life-giving things, but what stuck with me was the ending. “Live as if you were moving to the beach tomorrow. The plans I have for you are wild! I love you.”

Talk about a perspective shift and a walk of faith. I knew I wasn’t going to be moving any time in my foreseeable future. But what was stopping me from living like the person I imagined I would be if this life dream was fulfilled? What would I act like? How would I speak? How would I dress? What would I eat? How would I spend the hours in my days? How would I think?

It was a beautiful way to change my thoughts. And to live into the identity of a child of God, walking by faith.

Do you have a dream? Does it feel hopeless? How would you live today, if tomorrow it was all going to happen for you? Use this as an opportunity to live by faith that the God Who designed you before the foundation of the world, cares enough about you, and loves you enough, to care deeply about the desires of your heart!

As my week transpired, it all felt lovely and hopeful. But as life does, I met with some more challenges with health and pain near the close of the week and was feeling discouraged again. This time, moving to the beach wasn’t even in my radar; I just wanted to feel better and think clearly and have no pain. Life still had to be lived with birthdays, Fathers Day, commitments, family, friends, and places to show up. But it was a slog now, doing these things when I felt so poorly.

“God? I don’t understand! What am I doing wrong? How am I supposed to live in a life-giving way when I can barely function? How can I love those around me when I can barely move without pain?”

His answer to me?

It starts with worship.

Everything life giving, starts here.

So, with tears, and a halting spirit. I praised Him. For the moments and the small blessings. I honoured Him in the broken – and stopped trying to micromanage my world to feel better – but gave it all back to Him. No longer focusing on the frustration of my ill-timed health problems but pouring my soul to Him Who loves me most and knows me best. Whatever we focus on, grows. And when we shift our focus off of ourselves and our problems onto our Father in heaven in worship and praise – ourselves and our problems fade into the hands of Him Who can figure it all out for us.

My perspective shifted. I could love again.

Reading in the Bible this week. . . the problems start when we have no faith, start complaining, and disobey God (See Psalm 106:24-27).

We have to go back to worship and praise, to faith and hope that He has planned good things for us and step forward in obedience to be His love and light.

And friends, as I’m slowly beginning to understand, these little choices will leave a life-giving legacy that will change our world and those around us.

Oh, and you won’t believe this! Name meanings are a big deal in our home – and as a friend pointed out – our names are literally spoken over us for the whole of our lives and words are powerful! Someone randomly looked up the name meaning of one of my daughters. The Japanese meaning, which we chose for her, was “forgiveness”. And the Hawaiian meaning, of which I had never seen or heard before, was “Ocean, or sea”.

Mic drop! What!? I had been living by the ocean for almost thirteen years, and I didn’t even know! God is so fun, and full of whimsy surprises!

With wildflower whimsy,

Steph xo

P.S. The quote of this week by Sally Clarkson sums up this blog post so well, I had to share:

…”the situation you find yourself in today, whether it requires excellence in morality, courageous endurance, faithful belief, or overcoming love, is the basis of your integrity or lack of integrity tomorrow. You cannot leave a story of faithfulness in the minds and hearts of your children, grandchildren, and others unless you actually live your story with faith courage, moral excellence, self-discipline, and sacrificial love today.”

There have been so many beautiful birds out and about this week, they have been breathtaking. Taking the time to stop and watch these beautiful God gifts has been a joy. I hope this post finds you well, and that this week brings many moments of beautiful whimsy to you.

A prayer for you:

Dear Father,

Please be with my fellow whimsy chasers. May you breathe Your love and life into them this week. May they experience the joy of Your presence, and dance like David in praise of You. May they walk by faith and be filled with worship and thankfulness for You and all of Your gifts. May we all follow the steps of You, our Shepherd. And live in perfect peace, sprinkled with joy and doused in whimsy.

Thank you Jesus, Amen

Until next week friends! May we rest in the arms of Jesus xo