I’m in a season of questions.

• What does the future hold for me after the M.B.A. is finished?
• Where should I invest my time and energy in the next months and years?
• Where do I find my passion in this season of life?

So many questions. And so much silence. It feels like I’m in a holding pattern with the end of this season seven weeks away.

• I’m battling a book proposal that won’t end.
• I’m waiting to move into our new house, waiting for our current house to sell.
• I’m longing for a fresh passion to rise up.
  

And in this season, I long to develop the skill of saying no so I can say yes to God’s best.

Lysa Terkeurst highlights this in her book The Best Yes. And Holley Gerth addresses it in her latest release You’re Loved No Matter What.

Don’t we all have a heart felt need to matter, but also to spend our years wisely? To invest in things and people that have eternal meaning?

These questions guide me in this new season.

Through it all I keep coming back to my word of the year…BRAVE. This is a season of being brave enough to wait. Brave enough to say no when I’m not sure which way to turn. Brave enough to be intentional rather than saying yes to everything.

It’s hard.

Maybe you’ve been there. You get asked to do something and say yes because you can do it. You know you’d be good at it. You know it would be done well and with relative ease.

But with every yes, I’m saying no to something else.

With every no, I say yes as well. The question is what am I saying yes to?

I want to say No (and YES) with intention. With a clear eye on what the end result is. Am I saying yes to time for what matters to me? Am I saying no to the things I can do but that aren’t fueled by my passions? Do I even know what my passions are anymore?

This is a new lens for me but one I want to adopt with intention.

Life moves too fast. Time with my children is too fleeting. I want to know Eric when we’re on the other side of this season of life.

How about you? What’s one thing that helps you say “no” to what’s good so you can say “yes” to God’s best?

Holley Gerth’s new book You’re Loved No Matter What: Freeing Your Heart from the Need to be Perfect looks like one that will be a huge help in realizing we don’t have to say yes to everything or please everyone. After all, I serve an audience of one.