Hello people of the GTCI family!
To our new family members, hello and welcome! Thank you for visiting us here. We hope that you subscribe, follow, share, and become a part of our family. I’m always so excited to see our family grow. We do hope that God blesses your heart and that you grow along with us. As you read the posts, please feel free to share your thoughts, and insights in the comments. And you can always drop me a personal message too. I really love to read from family members.
I like to think of March as Global Women’s Month considering we have International Women’s Day & Mothering Sunday just days apart from each other. However, today, I want to celebrate the men who often serve as unsung heroes cheering us girls on each day, supporting us while we multi-task and attempt to balance our numerous priorities, the ones who serve as our sounding boards even in the middle of the night, who pitch in with house chores, who fund our projects, and so on and so forth. We see you sirs! Today, we appreciate you and we celebrate you too. Thank you for being the wind in our sails. Thank you for cheering us on from the sidelines, unintimidated by our progress. Thank you for being our biggest cheerleaders and giving us room to fly. Special shoutout to my darling husband, I appreciate the gift that you are love!
Today, I really want to share from my heart – no theme, rather an experience that may resonate with some of us. Please think of this as friends talking over a cup of hot cocoa.
The last one year has been an adventure for me. I resigned my 9-5 in March 2020 and had plans to start out a new venture. Then the pandemic hit! It seemed like the rug had just been pulled out from under my grand plans, and with all the changes, I became “just” a mum. I’m really thankful for that season because it helped me clarify my priorities, re-discover my identity beyond my job title, and forge a tighter bond with my family. Amid what was a turbulent season for most, God then led me to start writing this blog, and opened several platforms of expression for me. 2020 was a huge God-led adventure that I could never have imagined, but that I am immensely grateful for.
Fast forward to January 2021, I started the year with great plans and by February, I started to feel very overwhelmed. I was very anxious about profiting from a venture I had only started about three months earlier, balancing work and family life, and so on. I felt that I wasn’t doing enough and that I needed to do more. I started to measure my “success” by own very myopic metrics and I started edging towards comparing myself and feeling like I wasn’t “achieving”. It wasn’t a good time but I’m grateful for the experience because it forced me to stop and refocus.
Looking back at these two seasons, I can smile now as I can clearly see the difference. In 2020, I was totally dependent on God’s leading; while in 2021, I was trying so hard to lead myself; and look where that landed me – exhausted in minutes. LOL! What differed other than His leading, my pace.
A few weeks ago, the Holy spirit reminded me of Mike Todd’s words at the Global Leadership Summit 2020. In his session, he talked about “the pace of grace”. He described this pace as one of great result, yet of great rest. He defined the pace of grace as striding (i.e., walking with long decisive steps in a specified direction). I am convinced that the Holy Spirit brought these words to my heart because He was trying to remind me to walk in step with God’s timing, direction, pace, tempo, and rhythm. You see, God does not want us to burn out. It is not His desire that we lose our family, health, sanity, or joy in pursuit of our assignments or vision. Absolutely not! His plan is that we prosper and be in health, even as our soul prospers. His plan is all-round peace and prosperity.
God is a God of order, balance, and rhythm. Dictionary.com defines rhythm as the pattern of regular or irregular pulses caused in music by the occurrence of strong and weak melodic and harmonic beats. If you need proof, look at the order of creation. He created everything in a certain order – day and night, before land and seas, after which came vegetation, then living creatures, and so on. He was precise and harmonious.
In rhythm, there are irregular pulses, weak beats and even moments of silence; yet the combination of the notes and sounds make beautiful music. In your life, like a piece of music – there will be allegro (fast paced, speed); grave (very slow), andante (at a walking pace), vivacisimmo (very fast and lively) moments but each moment is relevant to produce the beautiful orchestra that God is writing. Please don’t despise any moment, rather at every point – no matter how fast or slow, pay attention to Him. Never look away from Him, because He’s both the composer and the conductor – masterfully skilled at both.
While I was dwelling on one venture not moving as fast as I wanted it, God needed me at lento (slow) because He was bringing a project that needed me to do some deep work of developing learning content, while still even working in my favour on other ventures. When you start to feel anxious, remember that God is always at work and there is a purpose for every season.
Remember to walk in the pace of grace, otherwise you’ll miss moments (of significance), meanings (of some insights) and miracles (divinely orchestrated events). The pace of grace is sustainable and livable. It helps you stay on assignment, allows you grow and last, gives you margin, and gives health to your mind, body and spirit. The pace of grace gives you peace and prosperity.
Trust Him to teach you the unforced rhythms of grace. (Matthew 11:28-30 MSG)
Fun Fact: I took music as a subject in elementary and junior secondary school; and I’m so glad, I’ve finally found a use for these terms I had to memorize at the time.
You know this but I’ll never forget to remind you that,
