You're Rushing It

The F.I.T. Journal

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FAITH  •  INVITATION  •  TRANSFORMATION

I almost abandoned this series before it even began.

That probably sounds strange considering the idea had only been in my head for about a week, but it's true. Just a few days ago I looked at Damian and said, "I'm not going to do this. What's the point? I'm wasting my time."

He looked genuinely surprised.

"I thought you were excited about this," he said. "I thought you felt drawn to this idea. What happened?"

I've been thinking about that question ever since.

At the time, I blamed my frustration on trying to figure out how I wanted the posts to look. I was getting caught up in all the little details—the graphics, the layout, the colors.

But looking back now, I realize none of those things were really the problem. They were simply where the struggle surfaced.

To explain what really happened, I have to go back a few months.

Our final Balance + Mobility class was approaching, and Damian and I had been wrestling with what to say. We knew people would have questions. We knew there would be disappointment. We had poured three years of our lives into that class. It wasn't just another hour on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Somewhere along the way, it became a community. We celebrated victories together. We watched people regain strength and confidence. We laughed together. We walked through difficult seasons together.

Now we were supposed to stand in front of everyone and explain that we were taking a pause.

I just kept thinking, 

How do we do this?

How do we walk into that room and find the right words when we're still trying to make sense of them ourselves?

The morning of our final class, I was sitting quietly with a cup of coffee and a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach when, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought surfaced.

We should end class with a prayer.

I wish I could tell you my first reaction was peace.

It wasn't.

It was, 

Have I completely lost my mind?

It felt right in the moment, but it also felt completely unlike me.

I'm an introvert at heart. Speaking in front of a room full of people was one thing. Praying in front of a room full of people? The thought alone gave me butterflies. 

Still, I couldn't shake the idea.

So before I left for class, I wrote a prayer on my phone. Not because I knew I was going to read it, but because I wanted it there–just in case. 

I arrived a little early, like I usually did, so I could visit with everyone before class started. Damian came in a few minutes later after finishing a training session, and I quietly told him what I was thinking.

"I think we should end class with a prayer."

He didn't have to say anything. His expression said it all. It was the kind of look that said, 

You want to do what?

Seeing his reaction didn't strengthen my confidence.

If anything, it did exactly the opposite.

For the entire class I slowly talked myself out of it.

This isn't me.

This could be a disaster.

People are going to think this is corny.

Why did I even think this was a good idea?

By the time class was over, I had almost convinced myself not to do it.

Then Damian finished speaking, looked over at me, and simply held out his hand.

There was no backing out now.

I stood there with shaky hands, my phone in front of me, my heart pounding so hard I thought everyone could probably hear it.

Then I started reading.

My voice cracked almost immediately.

I honestly don't remember much after that. I remember telling Damian afterward that it almost felt like an out-of-body experience—almost like I'd blacked out.

Later, Damian told me something I hadn't even noticed. People had already started gathering their things like they always did at the end of class, but when the prayer began, everyone stopped.

The room became still.

Looking back, I think that morning changed something in both of us—not because one prayer suddenly transformed our lives, but because it became the beginning of a journey neither of us expected. 

Over the following weeks, something inside me slowly began to change.

I found myself journaling, praying, sitting quietly, and reading Scripture with fresh eyes. Verses seemed to appear at exactly the right moment. Certain conversations stayed with me long after they ended. Dreams, thoughts, journal entries, images, and moments that I probably would have dismissed before began weaving themselves together in ways I couldn't quite explain.

At some point, it became impossible for me to dismiss it all as coincidence.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't simply curious about God.

I found myself longing to know Him, be close to Him.

Somewhere in the middle of that journey, the idea for this series arrived.

It came quickly.

Almost effortlessly.

The ideas seemed to flow faster than I could write them down. I started seeing connections everywhere—between science and Scripture, between our bodies and our minds, between creation and the Creator. It felt exciting. Natural. I wasn't trying to manufacture anything. I was simply writing down what I was discovering.

Then, almost without realizing it, something shifted.

At first it was little things. I had started playing around with ideas for an image to accompany the series. Maybe the graphics weren't quite right. Maybe the font needed to change. Maybe the colors were off. Then maybe the whole thing wasn't right. Somehow, I had convinced myself that if I could just get that image right, everything else would fall into place.

I complained to Damian, "I'm stuck in the weeds."

What surprised me most was that it didn't stay at the computer. I'd walk away, but my mind wouldn't stop. I'd go work out and instead of being present, I'd find myself thinking about what I could change next. I became impatient. Irritable. Increasingly frustrated.

And over what?

An image.

One small piece of a series that was supposed to be about something so much greater.

Looking back, I think that's what bothered me most. I had become so focused on getting this one small piece exactly right that I was losing sight of what actually mattered. It wasn't how the series looked. It was the heart of what I was trying to say.

For weeks I had felt a quiet peace beginning to surface in my life.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Just little by little.

I found myself turning to God more often. Learning to be still. Spending more time in prayer. Slowly learning what it meant to trust Him.

Then I started chasing perfection.

And almost without realizing it, the peace that had been quietly rising to the surface was slowly buried beneath revisions, checklists, and an invisible deadline that existed only in my own mind.

I remember thinking, 

What happened?

I honestly thought I had lost it.

Not just my excitement for the series.

The peace.

I was disappointed in myself.

Here I was, trying to write about faith, while doing the exact opposite of everything I felt God had been teaching me.

Instead of slowing down, I was striving.

Instead of trusting, I was controlling.

Instead of listening, I was overthinking.

Part of me even wondered if I had somehow let God down.

Then I remembered something.

A few weeks earlier, during another restless night, I had prayed,

"God, what am I missing? What do You want me to know?"

Before morning came, I heard three words so clearly they woke me up.

You're rushing it.

My first reaction was confusion.

Rushing what?

I tried to dismiss it, but the words stuck with me.

Still lying in bed, I opened Instagram. The first post at the top of my feed was this:

That got my attention.

I still didn't understand exactly what "You're rushing it" meant, but the timing was hard to dismiss as coincidence.

Looking back, I wonder if those words were preparing me for what was coming. Because when the idea for this series came along, I did exactly what I always do.

I rushed it.

Somewhere along the way, I quietly turned an invitation into an assignment.

Maybe that's the teacher in me.

For eighteen years my life revolved around lesson plans, objectives, assignments, and outcomes. Give me an idea, and my mind immediately wants to organize it, define it, perfect it, and figure out exactly where it's going before taking the first step.

I don't think I ever stopped thinking that way.

And I think that's part of what God has been gently teaching me.

Not everything He invites us into comes with a curriculum. Sometimes, He simply says, "Walk with Me."

I think I believed that because I had become misaligned with Him, I had to work harder to find my way back. But that's not what I have been learning at all.

God wasn't asking me to strive. He was inviting me to return.

He hadn't gone anywhere. He was patiently waiting, just as He always had.

One of the greatest lessons I'm learning through this journey is how easy it is to mistake God's invitations for projects to complete.

So perhaps this series isn't what I originally thought it was.

It's not a curriculum. It's not a roadmap. And it's certainly not a place where I'll pretend to have all the answers.

It's simply a journal. A place where I'll share what I'm noticing, what I'm wrestling with, and what I'm discovering as I learn to walk a little more closely with God.

Because if there's one thing I've learned over the past year, it's this:

When I was struggling with anxiety and sleepless nights, I wasn't looking for someone to fix me. I was looking for someone who would simply say, "Me too."

That didn't solve my insomnia. But there was something comforting about knowing I wasn't alone.

I’ve come to realize that through all of it, God was there too—in the quiet, in the questions, and in the nights when I couldn't sleep. And yet, instead of trusting Him, I kept trying to carry everything on my own. 

I think many of us already have more information than we know what to do with. What we're quietly starving for is companionship. Someone willing to walk honestly through life and simply say, "I'm still learning too."

Maybe that's really why I'm sharing any of this.

Writing has always had a way of making me slow down. It forces me to sit with things a little longer, to reflect instead of immediately trying to solve them, and sometimes to notice what I might have missed otherwise. I need this space as much as anyone.

But I'm also beginning to think there is something meaningful about letting each other see the parts we don't usually show—the struggles, the doubts, and the moments when we're not nearly as put together as we might appear.

So I'll keep writing. Not because I know exactly where this series is going, but because I'm beginning to understand that I don't need to.

This time, I can simply accept the invitation and see where God leads.

And if you'd like to walk along with me, I'd love to have you here.