Finding The Holy Spirit In A Podcast

It never ceases to amaze me how the Holy Spirit will put exactly what you need in your path at the exact moment in which you need it. 

I was feeling frustrated a couple of weeks ago. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a wife and a mother. I spent my entire childhood mothering a baby doll I named Shelly and being a wife to my imaginary husband, Mike. I even made my mom set a place at the table for him. It has been the one thing that has consistently alluded me to date. I seem to (eventually) get the job or work out the problem or find the right path forward. I can see God in those details so clearly. Yet when it comes to my heart’s biggest wish – single. I’m mostly okay with it. I can mostly trust that God didn’t put these desires on my heart for naught. I can mostly keep the faith and expect God to turn the page on this lengthy chapter of my life at any moment, in a way so big it has to be Him. 

Sometimes though, I falter. 

It was Bumble’s fault. I opened the app for the first time in months after swearing off dating apps following a series of subpar to bad dates and a deep belief that I won’t find my husband on an app. I figured new city, new chapter, why not see what Knoxville has to offer? I kid you not, the app froze on the very first profile I opened. His bio read: “recently divorced, lots of baggage, swipe if you dare.” The photo matched his words. 

A sign to listen to that “he’s not on an app” voice if there ever was one. 

Then there is the fact that God gave me a series of (very) vivid dreams that to this day, I haven’t been able to shake. I forget about these dreams for long stretches of time and then, out of the blue, they float to the surface like God is saying “hey, don’t forget about this…” I wish I could adequately put into words what it feels like when those feelings pop up. It’s like a nudge or a pointed whisper from a teacher to get you to focus on the lesson at hand. It’s sort of like finding that Christmas ornament you bought on clearance the day after Christmas and forgot all about when it’s time to pull out the tree again. A happy surprise you weren’t expecting. 

Not long after the frozen app, God nudged those dreams back into the forefront of my thoughts after a long stretch of dormancy. For several days, they followed me around, tapping on my shoulder, so to speak, reminding me they had happened and asking me to pay attention to them. Kind of like my dog Knox does when he follows me around the house tapping his ball against my calf to get me to play with him. In all the shoulder tapping remember me of it, I found myself questioning it. Why do these dreams keep popping back to mind? Do they matter? Are they just dreams and not the God-given messages I feel like they are? Am I looking for something that’s not there? I started to doubt all the little nudges and God winks that told me otherwise. 

During this recent resurgence of “The Dreams,” I finally wrote them off. I convinced myself I had to be making it all up. My first dream came so long ago, and the more recent ones just could not be reflective of reality. Forget airstream signs. Life doesn’t work like that. You don’t have dreams and people don’t speak a word over you that later comes true. It’s all a fantasy, too good to be true, fantastical thinking, not at all based in reality. I let the dreams go and moved on. Truly told them “good riddance.” 

Then I listened to the Coffee with Kailey episode with Mia Fieldes. It’s always Coffee with Kailey, isn’t it? I’ll have to write a full post on how impactful that podcast has been on my life and all the nuggets of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. God has used Kailey and her podcast to reach me, to bolster my faith, several times over now, always sending the right message or the right guest at exactly the right time. 

In this particular episode (episode two of season three), Mia talks about keeping her faith while single, getting married in her thirties, and her journey to parenthood. It so faith-filled, so miracle-filled, that I couldn’t not see the message in it for me: God was trying to tell me not to discount those dreams, not to discount what He can do, not to discount the desires He put on my heart. He was reminding me that He can and does perform miracles every single day. 

Can I be honest? 

I get frustrated with God sometimes. I so want to be truly baptized in the Holy Spirit, to have the dreams, or get a word, give a word. I want to have those moments Kailey speaks of, moments when someone reaches out and says “hey, I had a dream” or “hey, God wants you to know…” I want to be able to do that, too. I want to be on the delivering end as much as the receiving end. 

I know I’ve experienced it before. I spoke words earlier this week over a friend that didn’t feel like they came from me, but rather from the Holy Spirit. I know that learning about the Holy Spirit (another thing I need to write more about) answered a lot of questions, explained a lot of the moments in my life that I couldn’t otherwise explain, the knowings and the feelings that led to a bigger story. Yet I continue to yearn for it, to be active in it. I crave seeing God’s work in the supernatural. 

And of course, patience is not a virtue I have. I’ve prayed for discernment on these dreams, prayed (and prayed and prayed…) for God to just take them away, out of sight, out of mind, if they don’t mean anything or if they didn’t come from him. I continue to pray and pray and pray for a husband. I know God’s time isn’t my time, but man, He sure does like to make a girl wait. 

God is not a genie, nor does He reply when we think He should or how we think He should. My prayer has become one of asking God to do something so big in my life I’ll know it is from Him, that it could only be Jesus. 

In the meantime, I’ll keep trusting that the Holy Spirit will intervene. 

And that He’ll keep sending podcasts (books, words, people, movies, etc.) when I doubt.