When we were younger my sister and I had the FUN FOUNTAIN sprinkler that we would run through.  It was a creepy looking clown with a party hat.  As the spigot would be turned on and the pressure would build up the hat would rise and spin around.  The water would spray out of the top of the hat like fireworks.  In our simple minds, it was magnificent.  We would then jump through the stream in the middle.  Every time we would interrupt that stream the hat would drop a little, but you didn’t want to let it hit the ground or yourself.  Strategery (wink)  began for us at young ages.  But seriously though, that sucker hurt.  By today’s standards this toy was extremely hazardous…. Especially if one of us lacked a little coordination and while running though it would hit the hard plastic head, trip and fall. (You never forget what it feels like to get the air knocked out of you by the hard ground when you’re soaking wet. That image oh my...people have been laughing AT me my whole life.)  I actually didn’t make it through childhood with all of my teeth, due to my lack of coordination, but it wasn’t the clowns fault. I digress.  Back to the clown.  It was all about the hat, you had to keep it up!!!

Have you ever sat with someone that you were having a ‘conversation’ with and you talked first and then they just looked at you?  They were ‘processing.’  Their facial expression was absolutely unreadable.  I have, and let me tell you I don’t do it well.  I want to scream... “you need more giga whatevers because you’re processing too slowly KEEP UP.”  That silence literally kills me, so I talk more (weird for me, I know), and worse yet sometimes I act without any real feedback.  I’ve often thought that the aforementioned kinds of people must be jammed packed with juicy information because those of us that silence kills can’t handle the dead air, so we keep spewing.  Is this just me or are you following?  I think that I NEED immediate feedback and results.  Check yes or no and give it back to me at the end of class kind of girl.   

About this time last year I was convinced that 2017 was my year.  It was the year of me being the big 4-0… and I was going to make it count.  I had life goals. I had family goals. I had marriage goals.  I had work goals.  I had ME goals.  GOALS FOR EVERYONE.  “I” had a lot of intentions but I was in a one way conversation and I forgot to wait for the feedback.  Looking back I see clearly that I was in the process of making my life a replication of any woman USA instead of recognizing and utilizing the specially specific gifts that I was given to be ME.  GOD put his big honking hand up and made me sit back down and listen.  It stung in a real way.  

It needed to happen.  Why?  I wasn’t listening!!!  My head, my heart, my mouth were filled with so much ‘noise’ that I couldn’t possibly listen for God’s plan.  I had my own and he said NOPE.  I was looking at it all wrong.  2017 was never going to be MY year because they are all HIS and that was the feedback that needed to be received. 

Truth sauce...it still does sting, and I am not completely healed from my fall, but I got back up, brushed myself off, checked my teeth (still smiling and there) and am quietly (or as quiet as I can be) back on HIS path.  A lot like the Fun Fountain freaky clown, my pressure has been turned up because my listening heart was turned on. I needed the interruption in my stream because I needed to fall in order to get back up so that I could appreciate the fireworks once again.  I truly believe that God gives us gifts and places us on a path, and the more we stray, the more we balk at it, the more we ignore it…..the more our hat falls, just a little. Let’s be honest, it’s not always fun to be obedient.  WORTH it, yes, FUN?  NOT always.  If we stay on our own path that hat will fall all the way down and sting, sometimes worse than others.  If, however, we listen, and stop talking, if we wait for HIS feedback, IN HIS TIME, NOT OURS (I’m pretty sure I can’t tell him to get more gigabytes), our party hat will remain on and up and twirling (just the way we like them- occasionally a funny pops out of me)…. And the fireworks of our life will continue to be of magnificent splendor.

NOTED.... and desperately trying to LISTEN this time!