radical love

I find great convenience in knowing what season I'm in.

Of course, that takes the fun out of things. But I'm known to be a party pooper.

I love knowing how to prepare. Is it "sun's out, gun's out" tank top time? Or perhaps do I need to (begrudgingly) retire my flip flops and return to several months of cute-boot-wearing-toe pain? Knowing what's up, what season it is, gives me direction.

I'm a planner by nature. It's for another time, but I grew up as the Dean of Damage Control. I felt I needed to be in control of everything to prevent XYZ. It grew into me being rather obsessive with maintaining plans, as well. (Just any friend who's received the epic Elise Cold Shoulder from canceling plans last minute. Oops.) It was just my life, and I've carried that. I have a super cute, overpriced planner to prove it.

But this kind of living produces a lot of bondage. And thankfully, though of course uncomfortably, the Lord challenged me in May this year. He saw vulnerability for change, and He dove in. He called for me to wade through the joy of uncertain spiritual waters. He called for me to dust off the God box I had neatly placed on my shelf for occasional use, and demanded that I let Him push me to be the wild daughter that doesn't fit nicely in a package.

The funny thing is that He prepared me for the uncertainty. God told me that it would look uncertain, but that I would be guided by two words this season. I wouldn't know anything but the name for my season, in the same way I would name "autumn" or "spring:"


I felt unsettled... and oddly confirmed. Something felt incredibly powerful about those two words. They invoked action and spontaneity. And I didn't know I needed them until God breathed them into my heart. I had been feeling so chained, so ready to unravel. Being in an amazing environment for radical change and pushback at my school left me craving the same in my relationship with God and in the church. It felt right.

But I couldn't really put my finger on it or discern how to go about this season. Okay, God - wild daughter, untamed spirit, let's rock... and roll? To where? In what?

I was further confirmed when, roaming in a large bookstore chain that I am mildly affiliated with, I came across a book that had been published maybe two weeks prior. The cover read "wild and free." If that wasn't enough of a two-by-four to God pressing me, the subtitle jumped out at me like a machete scene in Jason. It scared me but I couldn't look way. It read, "A Hope-filled anthem for woman who feels she is both too much and never enough."

It was one of those things that describes everything you've always felt but never had the words to express or the ears to express them to. It was as if God was chiming in, "Hey, you've been ready for this and I've been listening. It's time for us to partner together in this season."

So long story short, I devoted Bible time to God, read that book (which I do love and recommend if you're in a particular place of bondage, but I felt it could have ended five chapters sooner than it did. Womp.), praying intentionally, trusted God in taking a pay cut for a ministry youth teaching job, and ran with it. It's been the best thing I ever did, and I received more prophecy in the month of July into August that was so excruciatingly personal and God-breather than I ever had in my short life as a Christian. It changed my life.

And I think that changing of my life, and mostly of my perspective on things, is what lead me to thi post. I've gotten rooted into my church community, my relationship with God, and the changing climate of my inner circles. All because of something God spoke into me. But upon meeting with a wonderfully encouraging friend, I realized that my season has turned into an environment and atmosphere.

It no longer feels temporary. I think seasons, as they are modeled in real life, are meant to evolve and change. God may work on you for a longer season than we might want or think is coming, but there is a noticeable shift when your season changes. It doesn't mean that God's stopped cultivating your growth; you've simply "graduated" in a way and He is moving you to a more advanced relationship with Him.

My season of wild and free has truly become an anthem, a way of living, a home in which I reside. It's no longer a season, where I feel moved by every opportunity to discuss untamed love and wild living, things I deep down have always believed in whether I claimed them as key pieces of my identity. Instead, I want to share and grow with others in other aspects, and truly walk out this calling on my life. I'm not jumping at excitement whenever the words "free" or "wild" come up like I was, and so I know that my season has ended, God is moving inside of me, and it's time to walk in this life as a wild thing of the Lord while I seek further direction and seasonal words from Him. (And perhaps less run-on sentences, yikes.)

What's your season? Are you in one of deliverance or revelation, or maybe even waiting? Have you, too, shifted from a season to an atmosphere?

Wherever you are, and whatever you're doing, listen to God. As I live in my own wild calling, my mind is blown by how truly wild and unnameable God is. He is radically loving and present in everything. He never believes we are too much for a room, because He made us in His image, and neither have ever been meant to be tamed into four corners. He never believes we are not enough; He chose us, He thought we were worth dying for. And that's a pretty incredible thing to live in and believe. So I encourage you to see how wild and free you are when you give the Lord full control over the reigns in your life.