Do you ever have a week where you just know God is speaking to you? Or maybe you don’t know God is speaking to you, but maybe you keep receiving the SAME message over and over again?

I’m having one of those weeks.

In fact, I’ve now gotten the same message from four very separate sources. I know God is sending me truth.

Tuesday, my therapist and I were discussing some frustrations I’ve been having lately and she gave me some homework. My homework is to unapologetically give answers to smaller tasks. For example, if someone offered me a cupcake, instead of saying, “No, I can’t have it because I’m gluten free,” I should say, “No, thank you.” Do you see the difference?

A very wise friend of mine, whom I was also chatting with in the last week, gave me similar advice. She said, “Decision doesn’t equal excuse.” What she meant was, I can make a decision and that decision doesn’t also have to be an excuse. It can just be a decision.

I often get caught up with the idea that it isn’t fair to others if I don’t give them an explanation for why I can’t attend something or why I didn’t answer my phone or why I chose to design something the way I did. But in truth, it’s really okay to just give a simple, “yes” or “no”.

Sometimes I lament the person I used to be. I think I have always been a bit of an “explainer” because I didn’t want my answer to offend someone or make them think poorly of me, but before I went through a lot of trauma across a couple different jobs and realized some of my childhood baggage, I was actually a pretty confident and unapologetic individual.

Of course, if something I said upset someone and they came to me later to talk about it, I would apologize, but would always try to make it right. Usually, that was by talking through what I said and clearing the air. Often, I just had my foot in my mouth, and really didn’t mean anything harmful.

But I remember how optimistic and confident I used to be and think about how wonderful it could’ve been to have held onto that. Then I remember that looking back doesn’t serve me, because I know for every mountain I feel I have climbed there was a valley or Promised Land on the other side.

I’m finally regaining that confidence back bit by bit. I’m smiling more and noticing that my mind doesn’t always think through every worst case scenario first. Overall, my mental wellbeing has been tremendously better.

That being said, the third place that God sent this message to me was through a new mentor. She lovingly told me that an area of growth for me would be to stop apologizing and own what is on my heart, be confident in what I’m saying.

I’ve known that this skill had been lost on me for a while, but seriously, when you hear a similar message from three different sources over the course of a week, it becomes blatantly obvious that I need to work on it!

At this point, I felt pretty confident that God was showing me the next area of growth I need to master before the rest of His plan for my life could be fulfilled.

As a reminder, I’ve been praying regularly for God to reveal to me His plan for my ministry and my life. While I don’t know that I have concrete answers, I do feel that His trials are giving me hope that my dreams are aligning with His plans in some ways.

Well, in comes the fourth source of this message. I turned on the most recent episode of a podcast I really enjoy, “WHOA That’s good” with Sadie Robertson Huff. The title was, “You Don’t Have to Look to Anyone Else for Validation.”

In that moment, I immediately said, “OKAY OKAY OKAY!” I’m sure God got a good laugh.

In that podcast, her guest said something that stuck with me for this journey I’m on. “Bloom where you are planted.”

It was the exact encouragement I felt I needed to hear. I’ve felt a little stuck lately, with lots of ideas, things I’m excited about, dreams for my life and for my family, and no feasible path forward other than continuing on the journey we are on.

I can’t say I’ve ever been known for my patience, but I’d say my impatience has been driving lately. Even as I have tried to find contentment in every venture, I notice myself still longing for another day when [insert any situation] will be better, bigger, stronger, more affordable, easier, etc.

But the truth is, I need to be living and attentive NOW. I need to be making the best of every situation, NOW.

Right now, I’m in the middle of a financial journey to debt freedom. Other than my relationship with God, that is my primary focus because once that box is checked off, all my other dreams become possible.

Knowing this, I need to get comfortable in this season of “beans and rice” as Dave would say. We are living like no one else today, so we can live and give like no one else later.

I guess my encouragement is this: If you’re like me and impatiently waiting on an answer from God, know that you aren’t alone in the way you feel. But even more so, try to remember that God has a plan for you and for me. It will always be revealed in His perfect timing. In the meantime, we wait, pray, love, and continue to grow in whatever ways we can. If you’re like me, God will make it obvious what those areas are.