Listening

Today at church I felt like I was able to pinpoint my major difficulties lately, both spiritually and professionally, boil down to the fact that I am just really, really struggling with listening. Partly, I just feel really distracted by my own life right now. I guess that is part of being 7 1/2 months pregnant, in a new job, and about to move to a new house, but it is still not a great excuse. I used to be a good listener. I would say in college I was someone who was known for my listening skills. That, and my ability to talk a belligerent drunk person into going to the hospital to be treated for the multiple pieces of glass lodged in their hand. Everyone's gotta have skilz. But lately it is all I can do when someone is talking to me to keep my mouth shut while I wait for my turn to speak again. This disgusts me on a personal level - I mean, I hate being on the other side of that conversation, when you know that someone you are talking with is basically just waiting for you to shut up and let them go. And yet I am doing that to people on a regular basis. Yuck. Also, I notice that I'm having a hard time making space for God to speak back in my prayer times. This was particularly apparant yesterday at Holy Spirit Saturday when we were praying for the Seek folks to receive from God's Holy Spirit. I did hear stuff for people, but I had a very very difficult time dialing my own internal dialogue back and just listening for the nudge, that still small voice, so much wiser than my own. It was frustrating, and continues to be frustrating. I need God's resourcing so much more than usual right now, and yet I have this tremendously difficult time actually letting him talk. So dumb. So not acceptable.

I went and got prayer today at church and that felt helpful, partly just because I was allowing myself to receive without feeling obligated to nurture or provide for anyone, an experience that I find is more and more rare in my life lately. The lovely lady who prayed for me did so sweetly, and one thing she said struck home. She prayed for God to give me times to listen and times to talk, and people to listen to and people to listen to me, and she asked for more balance in that. I am definitely out of balance, especially in my time in relationships spent where I nurture people in (90%) versus the time spent in relationships I get nurturing out of (10%).

So: tasks for this week. 1, Listen well. Pay attention when people speak to me, both to their words and to what they are actually saying, or asking for. Ask God to help me dial back my internal voice. 2, Set aside time with nurturing friends who can feed that need to be listened to. Let God be one of these people too. 3, Let go of some of my focus on productivity and live more in the moment as well as living more intentionally towards something bigger. 4, Get enough sleep, eat meals on time, and arrive/leave work timely. Act like boundaries on my time are important and possible.