If you watched Friends you can see the scene. Ross is with Rachel and Chandler and he has purchased what he believes to be the best couch, until he has to get it up the stairs. This is where you find the three friends. No matter how loud or how many times Ross yells, “PIVOT!” the couch is stuck. 

That is me. 

I am the couch. 

For weeks I have been listening to my pastors sermons and countless business webinars talking about finding something new, making change, and no joke… “time to pivot.” These are great and make sense. I have implemented some of these ideas in our new business and in regards to learning new ways to market, brand, and publish. 

But let’s be honest, these concepts were “new” to begin with. I didn’t already have a well oiled routine for my new business venture. So although on the outside, to those who are seeing this part of me, I may appear to be pivoting just fine. 

I am not. I am the couch. I am stuck.

If I am really vulnerable with you all, Just Call Me Jonah, again. This time I wasn’t running from something. This time I am just stuck in the belly of the whale. I am not dead, but I might as well be. 

My communication with others is at its lowest, despite the millions of ways to connect and the ridiculous amount of times I am asked to be on a zoom with someone. I feel stuck. I do not know how to do my women’s eGroup well without the community. I do not know how to help my youth girls feel loved without seeing their faces each week in my living room. I no longer like texting, phone calls, facetime, or Zoom. This kind of meeting leaves me feeling more exhausted and overwhelmed. There I said it.  I can’t be the only one. 

I live for overbooked and overwhelming schedules, but THIS new lifestyle is far more overwhelming than navigating carpools to soccer, dance classes, therapy sessions, church commitments, playdates, and all the events of my youth I wanted to attend. THIS new life has far too much overlapping. Never is there a moment to get anything done. Never is there a moment where someone doesn’t ask for my time and attention. Never is there a moment where I can knock out my “to-do” list. Honestly, the list is just growing! 

If you are a momma trying to work from home during the quarantine while homeschooling, trying your best to be a good wife, a patient and present momma, and to do well at your job then hear me now… ME TOO! 

It has taken me eight weeks to realize I can’t do it anymore. I am too stretched and if someone doesn’t rescue me from this whale belly or the stuck position of the couch on the stairwell it is not going to end well. 

We can be like Ross and yell “PIVOT!” from the rooftop or we can just cut the couch.

Do you have “stuff” that needs to be cut from your life? Ideas that are dead, relationships that are not giving you life, or commitments that you can no longer bear the weight of? 

I have killed every single plant/flower that has been given to me probably because I am not good at the pruning part. Pruning takes time, patience, precision, and a cutting tool. I literally lack all of those things. 

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:2

If you are feeling stuck, may it be time to be pruned? All these things have been taken from us over the past weeks. Everything that was once “normal” has been turned upside down. Perhaps you are like me and just beginning to mourn what is gone. The mourning is keeping you stuck. 

When we lost our son Alex, I, without a doubt, went through mourning. I wept over not only his physical presence being gone, but every dream I had envisioned vanished. I wept over the life I thought was here only to be taken from me far too soon. 

It was difficult to understand then how any of this could have possibly been a part of my pruning. Unlike my lack of precision, God knows where to cut. Unlike my patience, God knows just how long it will take and how long to wait. With each year that passes by, I see more and more fruit from Alex’s life. I will not pretend it was easy. Nor can I assume pruning ever is. 

If you are feeling stuck, like me, it is time to be cut like the couch and be pruned. But it is more than allowing the pruning. First we must seek counsel on the pruning. More often than not, most of us have already had quite a bit pruned from us. 

Now it is our turn to bear some responsibility. We must seek God for guidance in order to know the precise place to be pruned. 

The reality is the pruning is going to be tough. In this season we may still feel stuck. I think we can learn from Jonah 2:

1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
    and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
    into the very heart of the seas,
    and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
    swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
    from your sight;
yet I will look again
    toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,[b]
    the deep surrounded me;
    seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
    the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
    brought my life up from the pit.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
    to your holy temple.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
    turn away from God’s love for them.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
    will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
    I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”
10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

Just like Jonah, I can raise my prayer, raise my praise, and vow to bear fruit in the places I am pruned. 

I don’t know when this will be over. I don’t know how long the pruning will last. I don’t know how long I am going to continue to “feel stuck.” But I do know, I have a good Father. A Father who has a higher perspective, patience, and precision. A Father who has all the right tools and will equip me when I ask for it. 

Join me this week. Mourn for what you have lost, pray for precision in the pruning, and praise God in the process.