The Exhale in Our Journey

There comes a moment in every journey when the one traveling must exhale.  

On a hike it might be so you can crest the next hill.  You draw in a deep breath and push through to the top.

In life it often feels like the need to exhale comes before moving into a new phase. A new place of being.  Out of necessity we find ourselves driven to release something from the past so we can move on.  

It feels like I am at that point of my own journey.  I am feeling this need to exhale.  To let go of the voices that try so overwhelmingly to silence my own voice.  It is funny, but up to this point I had not realized how many people and influences I allow to silence my voice.

Somewhere inside I let a lie take root that various people over the course of my life have spoken into in a way that made me believe it as truth.  A lie that said my words do not hold the same value as another's.  The lie that said I was not good enough in a particular position.  The lie that said because I happen to be female my voice should not be heard as much as someone who happens to be male.  

I look at my journey and realize that as far as I have come and as much as I have grown, I still have pieces of the lies that have been spoken into my life that influence how I use my voice.  I move slower toward what I know to be right because voices with authority in past parts of my journey have convinced me that they hear God's voice for my life better than I could.  It makes me hesitate and think that God speaks to them differently than he does me because I hear a different message from him.  It convinces me that what I hear has to be wrong. 

Right now the need to exhale at this part of my journey feels so strong it is almost tangible, like I could reach out and touch it.  

Exhale.

The word is like a breath of fresh spring air wafting through the open window.  An invitation to forget the death and cold of winter and the past and an opportunity to welcome and embrace new life and new beginnings.

Exhale.

It is an invitation to rest in the present moment of our journey.  To welcome God into the very second we are in and to experience his truth in a completely new way.  It is an invitation to be still, to hear the still small sounds that we ignored in the busyness that has been our past.

What does that look like for you today?  How does it change your present to say yes to the stillness that allows us to hear most clearly from God?