Day 1: Turning Off Our Phones

In an age of being seen, having followers, getting likes, and being noticed, being unseen can seem foreign and certainly not welcome. With the push of a button, we can enter into so many lives—of our friends and of those we just admire.

I love it. Truly. I’ve made friends online—good friends whom I hold in my heart and walk through life with and who understand me in a way that others don’t. I love that we can have a community there. Somewhere along the way, though, I have lost the art of getting away with God and simply being alone with Him. Instead, I have found myself going to social media when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

I felt God saying, “Alyssa, put your phone down for a bit. Look at the life I’ve given you. Let me be your healer, your escape, your rescue. Let me carry all your burdens.”

I have realized that what helps me to hear His voice is going for a walk every day. By myself. This in itself is a luxury with little ones at home, but my husband, Jeff, knows how important it is to me. And when my son, Kannon, sees me getting ready to go, he’ll ask, “Mom, are you going to talk to Jesus?” I do the same loop around my neighborhood, and I always end up pouring out my heart to God.

Usually, my walk is spent reflecting on what I read that morning, what I’m processing, what I’m struggling through, and what I'm working out with Him.

“Why do I feel this way? When this happened, it actually really hurt me. Oh, I see where I was wrong, and I need to ask for forgiveness there.” It’s a lot of confessing. A lot of God giving me His eyes to see situations as He does. A lot of His putting others on my heart to pray for them.

God is so patient with us. He doesn’t force us to have heart-to-heart moments with Him all the time. I think sometimes He knows we simply need a nap, or a good book to make us laugh, or a favorite Netflix show to enter into another story. But He’s always there, with us, in the pain and the dark and the heavy—in the mundane and the ordinary and the boring. When we cry out to Him, He will always hold us, and He will lead us to do the next good thing. He gives us all we need to take the next step, to walk through the next day, to face the hard thing. But we have to go to Him, get away with Him, pour out our hearts to Him in order to find that peace, that resolve, that strength to carry on.

An Instagram comment will not fill our souls in the way a verse, His presence, or a friend coming over to pray with us does.