A Forest of Oak Trees

My heart aches for the women who feel stuck in their day-to-day. For the women who can never see the joy of what they’re doing in their home because they’re always so bogged down with an endless task list that they never seem to get their head above water.

My heart aches for these women because I was one of them. (I still am one of them sometimes, if I let my circumstances control me like they used to.) My heart aches because I know the pain. I know the struggle of feeling all alone in the mundane, and stuck in a cycle of serving my family when all I ever wanted was to be taken care of myself.

I sat in that loneliness, sadness, and emptiness for almost 3 years. It was all I knew. I was serving my family everyday and while I was happy to care for them, it was also wearing me down to way past exhaustion.

I had my coping mechanisms which kind of worked…until they didn’t anymore. And I was just left raw, broken, and pushed way past my limit. Side note: self-care the way the world defines it is a lie from the pit of hell. Don’t fall for it. But that’s another story for another day.

It wasn’t until Jesus came, interrupted my life, and taught me of the vastness of His love for me that I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t until He saved me from my circumstance that I found joy in my serving again, joy in my kids again, and joy in my life again. He taught me what it meant to be content in Him, to rest in His promises, and to allow His love for me to be enough to carry me through.

And it really was after this mindset shift that I decided to rebrand from DIY Daydreams to Awaken Koselig. Once I understood the true meaning of contentment I needed that to be what I showed the world; not some fake, perfect, modern version of knitting. I wanted the world to see the real version of me: raw, broken, imperfect, but healed beyond all measure and loved more than I could ever imagine. This new message was way more important than anything that I could knit or sell. My goal for Awaken Koselig has always been, and will always be, to help YOU find contentment in the Lord the way I did so you can be healed just as I was.

But to be honest, telling this story hasn’t always been the easiest. While I will never back down from telling the world my story, I am shy by nature and usually won’t come forward with something unless I’m asked. But I don’t think that’s what I’m supposed to do for you. I need to tell my story so you know you’re not alone, and that only happens if I’m willing to open my mouth first.

So, as we journey down this new road together, mostly here on the blog, I wanted to share my prayer with all of you, taken from Isaiah 61:1-3 (NIV)

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me […]
   to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

My prayer for each and every one of you is that the Lord will give you a crown of beauty instead of ashes! My prayer is that He will turn your mourning and sadness to joy! My prayer is that He will switch out your fears and failures with a robe of praise for the One that is Holy! My prayer is that each and every one of you would become an oak of righteousness on display to showcase the splendor of the Lord!

I’m not telling you that I have it all figured out. I definitely haven’t reached “oak of righteousness” yet. But my hope is that if I’m more transparent with what I’ve been through, with what I still go through on a daily basis as a mom of 4 young ones, that as iron sharpens iron we can build each other up into a forest of oak trees who boldly put the splendor of the Lord on display for all to see.

That’s my prayer for this space, and that’s my prayer for all of you. And to begin our new journey together, I’d like to offer you some wisdom if you’re currently in a place of ashes, mourning, and despair right now:

Do what you can to identify what in your life is turning your mindset to darkness (for me it was drowning from raising my kids) and bring those things to the Lord. Don’t try to do this in a nice and presentable manner. Just bring whatever emotions you have to the feet of the Jesus, whether it’s anger, frustration, depression, fear, etc, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be talking to the Creator of the Universe and He’s big enough to handle your tantrum. But it’s important you bring ALL of your emotions to Him, to get it all out because it’s only AFTER you get it all out into the open and confess it all that you’ll be mentally ready for healing. After you do this, let Him know you’re ready to find joy again and ask Him to help you.

My guess is that you have a skewed perception of some aspect of the nature of God. For example, the way I saw His ability to love me was shattered. I couldn’t fathom it, even though it’s true. The key here is to allow God to show you these things, to reveal aspects of His nature that you previously dismissed or overshadowed. From experience I know this part won’t be easy. He’s revealing your sin to you, so yeah, it’s gonna hurt a bit. But I promise you it will be worth it. Let Him in. Let Him reveal those hidden parts to you. Let Him heal you. Your mourning will soon turn to contentment, which will soon turn to joy.

I promise He will meet you and I promise He’s faithful to walk with you, to guide you, to sort out all the gunk in your heart. I know this because I went through this exact same thing. Just remember beauty, joy, and praise are coming. You just have to let Him in.

Maybe someday soon we’ll look up at each other and see that as we’ve done the dang thing, that the Lord has expanded and grown us into oaks of righteousness for our children to see the splendor of the Lord.