Winter reminds us that everyone and everything needs some quiet time.
A boy of six years old, was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. He looked up, small and certain, and said,
“I think I’ll just have to be myself. I’ve tried to be like someone else, but I’ve mucked it up each time.”
It has taken me a lifetime and years of chronic pain, illness, and discouragement, to finally understand the wisdom in that little answer.
Your spiritual gifts aren’t found by striving, hustling, or contorting yourself into someone else’s shape. They are revealed through presence. Through making space for the soft truth that’s been whispering inside you since childhood.
I have spent seasons feeling like a waste of space, a waste of skin, wondering what good I could possibly offer the world from where I am. But like that child, after repeated failures at being anyone but myself, I am learning to return to who I truly am.
What are your spiritual gifts and how do you use them?
Seek the Soulful Intersection of Nature and Spirit
I go to the forest when I need quiet, peace, and centering. In the hush of pines and the steadiness of ancient stones, I hear truths I’ve forgotten. I feel wings embrace me. A sacred embrace. Wings lifting me into what I can still become.
This is where forest therapy, spiritual reflection, and divine connection come together.
Roman emporer and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius wrote,
Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up if thou wilt dig.
Forest therapy teaches us exactly that. The digging and the returning to the well within.
In forest therapy, we practice the art of noticing our inner landscape with the same compassionate curiosity.
We explore:
- What comes naturally to me?
- What brings me alive?
- What do others feel when they’re in my presence?
- Where do I feel like myself without effort?
These are the compass points of spiritual gifting.
Illuminate Your Life
KOVA
(n) Hungarian- a massive hard dark quartz that produces a spark when struck by steel
Perhaps the steel or trials that come to us also produces a bright spark.
One of my favourite people, Emily Belle Freeman shared this idea in her podcast, Inklings. S5E111. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf: Do Your Part with All Your Heart. She suggests we ask ourselves,
What is my gifting?
As Freeman points out, as humans, we are masters at listing everything wrong with us. But what if, for today, you wrote out what you’re really good at? What comes naturally? What others thank you for?
Freeman prompts us, A spiritual gift answers yes to even one of these questions:
- Has it touched someone?
- Has it blessed someone?
- Has it saved someone?
When we recognize our gifts, we increase them. They grow the way all living things grow: slowly, in seasons, with practice, not perfection.
Perfection discourages.
Practice expands.
Practice invites grace. Leaving space to improve each day.
This is where affirmations come in. Write down what is true for you today. Then recite it. Write who you are and who you are meant to be.
Even if that truth begins as tiny as a mustard seed, it can one day become a great sheltering tree.
Reflect on the Wisdom of Your Creator
I have found strength in beginning my day by thanking the Creator. Whether that be God, Spirit, or angels for you. I thank my gracious Father in Heaven. He is the One who planted these gifts in me. Thanking Him helps me see the ways they grow, mature, and take root.
Another idea Freeman has shared in her podcast, with which I firmly agree,
I believe God’s love for us is high.
I believe His expectations for us are high.
I believe His trust in us is high.
His trust in us is His faith.
His expectations for us are His hope.
His love for us despite our weaknesses is His charity.
And when I see His faith in, hope in and charity towards me, I can offer these gifts to others. These divine principles bring a trust in my ability back into my story. Because of what He offers me.
Joseph Campbell said,
Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again.
For me, that space is always the forest.
The Shift from Work to Success
Freeman shared a story from Leo Tolstoy’s, Anna Karenina. Tolstoy writes of a man named Levin. Levin decides one day to join the peasants in mowing hay. At first, all he can feel are the blisters forming and the ache in his bent back. The rows feel endless. He fears he cannot keep up.
But then something shifts:
Another row, and yet another row, followed… Levin lost all sense of time. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it all came easy to him.
There is a kind of magic in becoming so present in a task that you relish the process itself. Some people call this, flow.
So why do we question ourselves? Why do we doubt the gifts planted in us? Why not enter the flow, like Levin, and accomplish what we were meant for?
A Truer Perspective
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, a long time associate of The Maxwell Institue wrote,
For some reason it is easier to have faith in other people’s faith than in my own.
Can you relate? A goldfish doesn’t even know it’s swimming. It simply lives within the water it doesn’t recognize is there. He is a product of his surroundings without having any idea.
When we step outside ourselves through quiet, through curiosity, we finally see our inherent spiritual gifts.
This next block of photos is meant to be scrolled through quickly. It’s not about me or how I look, it is the expressions on my face. I encourage you to look through your photos. Which ones make you look the most alive?
Therein may lie a clue to your giftedness. After inspection, I am persuaded that my giftedness includes noticing and sharing the benefits of nature.
Begin with even a desire to believe.
Then start:
🌱 Practice affirmations
🌱 Practice gratitude
🌱 Practice perspective– stepping outside yourself to see your capacity
🌱 Practice noticing your gifts in real time
Watch them expand, like light through branches, like seeds breaking open. They will bring healing, clarity and spiritual confidence.
I’m the kind of girl who actually wishes on dandelions and shooting stars. With so much madness in the world, we have to be the magic.
-Anonymous
Try this simple practice the next time you’re in nature:
- Find a quiet place to sit or stand.
- Let your body settle.
- Notice one element in the forest that draws your attention. A leaf, a stone, a breeze.
- Ask, What gift is this offering me right now?
- Then ask, What gift do I offer the world in the same quiet, natural way?
Don’t force an answer. Let it arrive like sunlight between branches. Slow and sure.
Discover the Revolutionary Benefits of Forest Therapy
The forest is the place where our inner and outer landscapes meet. It’s where these spiritual practices grow deeper roots. Sit among the trees and write your affirmations. Walk slowly and speak gratitude aloud. Let the wind, water, and stillness remind you that you are becoming, gently and steadily.
Your spiritual gifts were planted in you long before you knew their names. They show up in the way you comfort others without thinking… the way you see beauty where others see ordinary… the way your presence shifts a room.
Like that wise six-year-old, you don’t need to become anything other than yourself.
You simply need to return.
Right now, I am watching the lake “go to sleep,” as my mom says. The water moves slowly, ice forms at the edges. Fog drifts over the surface in thin, damp wisps. And in this quiet, I find myself again. I feel my gifts stirring. Small. Tender. Wanting to grow and expand as I lean into them.
Wisdom comes with winters.
-Oscar Wilde
✨ Subscribe to follow my journey, and comment 🌊 if you too are standing at the edge of your frozen lake, trying to find your purpose again.
SUNBEAM ACRES 