You know that force of resistance, right? A little bit fear of failure, a little bit fear of success, a lot of fear of change, all masking themselves as busyness or apathy.

Well that played out for a while until my soul became so restless that I couldn’t fight the push to create any more. I finally had a chat  with my spiritual director about it during which she told me to JUST DO IT ALREADY. So I started taking action to put my work out there. I called a guy about helping me self-publish an Advent Devotional that I had already written as an e-book. This is a small project in general, but it was a big deal to me. I was attempting to put work I’d created into the world for other people to read and react to. Just the act of making a contract with someone else gave me helpful things like deadlines and accountability. I started building momentum. At this point you’d think the resistance would start to fade away, right? WRONG. Resistance came back with a vengeance.  I started panicking about accidentally ruining or losing my computer file.  I would worry I wouldn’t get all the last minute work done in time for our deadline,  When starting to talk about the project with other people I would suddenly freeze up. But the weird thing is the resistance didn’t just manifest itself in regards to my work. I started getting edgy and emotional in general. I wondered if things or forces were conspiring again me in life.  I eventually decided that, Yes, something was plotting against me and it was my own self.  A friend of mine once told me how the ego is so resistant to us doing dramatically new, identity changing things that it will do all kinds of tricks to prevent the change.  Yeah… that. Sitting here a few days before the advent devotional will likely be live on Amazon, I am reminded of the last time I was full term pregnant. For all you that have never been there, there is a feeling of tiredness and impatience with growing this life inside of you for so long, a sense of ready to be done with all the incubation.  Yet at the same time there is fear.  A wondering if you are ready for this birth.  A questioning of what life will be like when the new creation emerges. I remember struggling with resistance during my labor with my son.  It was a LONG labor and I think part of it was due to my fear of the change to come.  Eventually though, I just couldn’t fight the life wanting to be born any longer. Now the labor pains are coming again as I get ready to birth this new thing that’s been created.  Part of me is ready and excited, yet part of me still resists.  I wonder what the next few days will hold.  If it’s anything like my last delivery, I’ll get so exhausted with the the drama and struggle of it all that I’ll be willing to do anything to push this new thing forth into the world.  For here is the truth:

 

I wonder if there’s anything new wanting to be born in your life?  How are you resisting this change?  How are you welcoming it into the world?]]>