With spring comes the start of yard work: like every single weekend yard work, like I never want to see another weed in my life yard work!
This season started off on a high. I finally got my ‘new’ yard flamingos showcased outside. I methodically stalked these flamingos when they first arrived at Costco a few years back. It was love and first sight. Being the conscientious shopper that I am, I couldn’t pay full price. So I waited patiently week after week for Costco to mark them down. Like a predator stalking its prey, each visit I would roll past the flamingo display noting how many were left. It felt like a lifetime had passed, but finally the markdown moment arrived, and I pounced!
With childlike glee, I blew the dust off the boxes, and ripped open the packaging. Good thing it was childlike assembly too! With a blink of an eye, my pop of pink trophies were assembled and each had a new home. I gazed happily at my pop of pink yard ornaments.
From inside the house, one particular flamingo is the most visible. This backward facing, bashful appearing flamingo, is front and center for the most high traffic area of our house. I slip into self-reflection mode each time my eye catches a glimpse of this bashful pop of pink. Often, I feel this backward facing flamingo!
Regrettably, I feel like I have wasted too much time being this bashful, backward facing flamingo. A prime example of this is what you are reading right now. Mamas, left to my own devices, this website would have never happened. God’s prompt felt big and scary and I wanted to stay small and invisible. I delayed each God nudge, and doubted my God whispers. I had several creative reasons why this website whisper was just not feasible.
Thankfully mamas, God knows just how many bashful, backward facing flamingo days we will have. They are already calculated into our purpose journey. Don’t believe this? Here’s proof:
“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day passed.” Psalms 139:16 NLT
Read this again with me mamas: “Every moment was laid out before a single day passed.” Every delay. Every doubt. Mamas, each one of our diversion tactics have already been factored into our purpose journey. Our doubt does not delay God’s purpose.
The Message Translation of this same verse delves deeper:
“You know inside and out, You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit. How I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before You. The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.”
What about you mamas? Which of your God nudges makes you a bashful backward facing flamingo? What is God whispering to you? Are you hiding? Making excuses? Creating a list of every possible challenge? Or are you an overachiever, like me, and doing all three? Before you beat yourself up mamas, remember every single doubt and delay has been accounted for. I am living proof; your doubts and delays do not deter God’s purpose.
To all my backward facing flamingo mamas, I say: “you got this”. Take a deep breath. No, really, like right now… Take a deep breath. Hold it. Think of your God nudge. Now release your breath along with all your excuses. It is time to shed our bashful backward pose. It is time to face forward and be brave mamas.
JUST DO SOMETHING.
Ice Baby Ministries 