I’ve heard people talk about God speaking to them since I was a child. Back then, I imagined a thunderous voice from heaven literally booming, “Jessica, you must do this!” Of course, this would be complete with a bright light, harp music, and maybe a burning bush, for good measure. As I got older I decided hearing God would be a little less dramatic and would probably involve a distinct, clear message in my head directing me when to take the next steps. I assumed this would be obvious with no conflicting viewpoints or opinions swirling in my mind.

In my 30-something years of life, I haven’t had one of those exact moments of hearing from the Almighty. And if I’m honest, the whole burning bush thing would probably terrify me anyway. But just because I haven’t heard an audible voice from above doesn’t mean that he doesn’t speak to me. And it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have something to say to you.

When I’m paying attention, sometimes he simply closes a door, puts a person in my life who says just the right thing, lets me hear a timely sermon, or jumps off the pages of a book I’m reading. These methods work well when I agree with the path I’m being led down. It’s easy to listen to directions when they aren’t going to disrupt your life too much. But sometimes (most of the time) I’m more stubborn and it takes a lot more to reach me.

I am writing this from my kitchen table on a weekday while my daughter takes her afternoon nap—something that can only happen because I chose to listen and act on the myriad of messages that God was sending me.

You see, in my arrogance, I thought that I had earned my gold star for faith for at least the next decade by agreeing to adopt from China. After all, that was a huge step out into the familial and financial unknown. But I learned that was just warming me up for the next move.

We brought our daughter (L) home in August 2017 and my son (J) started kindergarten a few days after we got back. We secured a spot at a good daycare close to home for L at the end of October. I spent the first couple of months getting the plan in place for her necessary speech, occupational, and physical therapies. These were all common for a kiddo coming out of an orphanage, and I wanted to begin them all before I went back to work.

After J was born in 2012, I stepped away from a nonprofit leadership position that I loved to work only 32 hours a week in a new, less-demanding job. Though not the most fulfilling career path, it allowed me to focus energy and time on my family. With that schedule, I could still pick my son up from school each day, attend two of the three therapies each week for L, and have a little time to spend with them in the afternoon. Plus, I got to use the non-mom parts of my brain at work and contribute financially to the family, both of which were really important to me.

I had the best of both worlds. Or so I thought.

As I mentioned before, I’m stubborn. There may have been obvious messages telling me things were about to change, but I wasn’t open to them. Instead, I started to get restless. This should be my telltale sign to pay attention because I always get this way before a big change. I think this is because God whispers to me and I’m too stuck in my own ways to recognize it. So he has to stir me into restlessness so that I want something new. I could save myself a lot of headache if I were more in tune all the time.

While the daycare was working with us for some of the unique needs of an internationally adopted child, there were challenges that didn’t occur until we started her there every day. And since her speech therapist saw her there, it was very difficult for me to carry over anything into life at home. While these things made me feel what I thought was natural working mom guilt, I just figured it was normal and would pass with time. But it made me more restless each day.

At work, I was enjoying being back among the grownups where I didn’t have to feed anyone but myself and there were no diaper changing breaks for a few hours. I used to be excellent at giving my full attention to work while I was there and to family when I left, completely leaving thoughts of the office behind when I walked out the door. While many people always have feelers out for the next career move, I wasn’t even sure where my resume was saved and my LinkedIn account was two employers behind. I had no intention of changing anything in my work situation.

But then things started feeling different. What were probably natural office growing pains for other people weren’t settling quite right with me. With all the other changes going on in my life, I didn’t want familiar things I was accustomed to evolving. This only added to my restlessness.

During my commute, I started listening to podcasts. (Side note: Does anyone else picture a pea pod on a fishing pole when they hear that word? No? Me neither…) My favorite is Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love! podcast. (I bet you are picturing that legume on a hook now, aren’t you?) I had read several of her books and love how she addresses everything from food to football to family to complex spiritual issues in a very relatable way. Listening to the podcast was like taking a mini road trip with Jen and whoever her guest was for that episode. And since I felt like I was overhearing my friends’ conversation, I don’t think I immediately realized the impact their stories were having on me.

You see, I read a chapter in Jen’s (I’m sure we’re on a first-name basis, being friends and all) latest book Of Mess and Moxie called Dreamers and Makers. In it she championed women to pursue their art because the world needed their talents. I remember thinking I don’t have an art, so this doesn’t apply to me and moving on to the next page.

Without my knowledge a seed was planted in me that was being watered with every podcast I listened to. Jen was talking to “normal” people who were using their gifts, talents, and passions to actually do something they loved. While the topics may have been focused on food, the holidays, fashion, or motherhood, I was hearing tale after tale of women who decided to take the unknown path and are now reaping the benefits. My restlessness grew.

Yet I had no plans to change anything in my life. I kept on going to work, following the daily routine, and doing it all again. But I was antsy, and I hated that feeling. I found myself in the pickup line at J’s school filling out an application to be a personal grocery shopper and looking up part-time preschool programs for my daughter. What was I thinking? Hadn’t I had enough changes in the past few months? Was the solution to my discontentment buying other people’s milk and produce and trying to acclimate L to a completely different set of caretakers? I must have lost my mind.

During this time, I had been basically praying for God to make my current situation work. These weren’t bad prayers and I wasn’t asking for sinful things. I wanted to feel peace in my job. I needed my daughter to feel secure at daycare. I would like more quality time with my whole family.

But the scope of these pleadings was limiting the mighty plan of the creator of the universe. He doesn’t want me to make my plans and ask Him to bless them. God wants me to align my heart with his and then follow where he leads.

At some point, whether consciously or not, I relented and began to ask what I should do. While I wasn’t seeking change, I ever so slightly opened the door to the possibility.

Early one morning while getting ready in my bathroom when the strangest thought popped into my head. You should be a professional blogger.

What?!? I should also be a movie star or try out for American Idol. Those have about the same odds of success. I laughed at my own foolish idea and immediately dismissed it. But it wouldn’t go away. I remembered that a lot of the women Jen interviewed on the podcast started out as bloggers. But these were people like the Pioneer Woman. Not little ol’ me.

Just for fun, I Googled “do people make money blogging” to find that it is possible. But it is complicated, hard work, and only a few really make a real income. It just kept nagging me so I switched to listening to a few blogging podcasts. Since I’ve always liked to write and have a marketing background, it didn’t sound completely impossible. But it was impractical, and I pride myself on making logical decisions.

One night I casually mentioned to my husband that I should just quit my job to become a blogger. I was more being funny than anything because, well, it was a comical thought. He, however, acted all serious and was immediately supportive and thought I should do whatever made me happy. Obviously, he is not the one who regularly checks on our budget and manages most of the household finances. Plus, he has to live with the moods of restless Jessica so I felt he was probably just appeasing me. It was still a farfetched idea in my book.

But the wheels kept turning. I was doing the math about what it would look like if we stopped paying for daycare and gas for my commute. When I realized that I was basically working for free the first half of the year just to cover childcare and travel, making some sort of change sounded a little less insane.

Then I ran the idea past my friend one day just to get her immediate reaction. Much to my surprise, she didn’t think I had gone off the deep end. In fact, she was adding fuel to the idea that I should really consider this. That was terrifying. My restlessness had reached a peak.

As I mentioned, I consider myself to be very practical. I was afraid that I was steering the conversation and my thought process toward this whole blog thing by filling my downtime with research and reasons why it might work. But I wanted to know that I was hearing God’s voice, not just my own distractions.

In the quiet of my car one morning on the way to work, I turned off all the noise and told God that I was stopping the podcasts, the math, the Googling, and the hypothetical conversations with others. I was sure that I was reacting to all the changes in my life by daydreaming and it would settle down once we all got adjusted to our new normal. It wasn’t the time to start chasing crazy notions when we had just finalized our adoption process and got our son going in a new school. I felt I needed to be satisfied with the wonderful life He had given me and to keep things the same for the foreseeable future.

I wrapped up the prayer and turned on the radio to a Christian radio station. (After all, I couldn’t really follow up that spiritual moment with Boyz II Men’s greatest hits.) And I kid you not, the very first thing I heard was this:

Have you stopped reaching
No longer seeking greater things
Have you forgotten
You have a Father listening

He tells the sun when to rise
Gives the wind its breath
Swings a door wide open and
Moves in the moment you least expect

Don’t you give up on a miracle
You’ve got to speak to the impossible
You gotta
Pray till your breakthrough breaks through the ceiling

Keep on believing
Don’t you give up
Don’t you give up
On a miracle

How many chances
How many answers
Pass us by
You know it takes faith
To step on the waves
When you’re terrified
When you’re backed in a corner
And you can’t wait any longer

Feels like the prayers and the words you have spoken
They go unnoticed
Like drops in the ocean
Just beyond the veil of your vision
Your mountains are moving, moving on
Remember the works his hands have done
Where you once were and how far you’ve come

It was the song Miracle by Unspoken and hearing it sucked all the air out of my car. To compound matters, the show host came on right after it and said something like, “What if your miracle was today and you gave up before it happened?” By this point, my eyes are starting to burn with emotion.

The icing on the cake is that they then broke to a 59 Seconds of Hope recording with Levi Lusko. He filled my Camry with a quick word on how it was better to serve your family meager meals with love and peace in your home than to have expensive things in the absence of peace.

God may not have used the burning bush and thunderous voice, but he definitely spoke clearly to me that morning. You see, he cares about each and every one of us. He wants to show us the way. We just need to pay attention.

My restlessness subsided that morning. I knew what I had to do, I just had to decide when. Because even though I’d had a spiritual epiphany, it didn’t mean that my very human self was ready to act on it.

A few days later we found out that my husband’s work schedule would be changing, meaning I would have to alter mine to get kids dropped off at the correct times. Then I got an unexpected note in the mail from a college friend I hadn’t seen in years with a very generous gift card to Target because she just wanted to bless us and our adoption. Next, I met with L’s speech pathologist for the first time since going back to work where told me how much better L responded to therapy at home instead of at daycare.

God was telling me the time was now.

To wrap up this story, I am now a stay-at-home mom with a blog I work on during nap time. My plan is to use my personal experience to help other people live within a budget, fundraise for adoptions, and share other good things in life. It would be great if I could eventually make a little money doing something I enjoy, but for now, I’m still working out all the kinks. My main focus right now is my family.

I am teaching my daughter, who spent first 18 months in an orphanage, what it means to have a mother in her life. Her early intervention therapists are teaching me how to spur her language development and reach her other developmental milestones. She needs me at home with her right now more than she needs us to have some extra spending money. Plus, I’ll get to take my son to the pool this summer and watch my children play together during the day. And my husband has a much happier wife to come home to.

I don’t know what the future holds or what is next in my journey. It is entirely possible that the blog idea was given to me because I wasn’t going to quit my job otherwise. Or maybe God has much bigger plans for me and my family than I can even dream. But I know for sure that He spoke to me and I now have peace in place of the restlessness.

I’m not sure what your relationship is with Jesus, or where you are on your journey. But I can tell you that he wants to speak to you, too. In fact, he may already be trying to tell you something, you just have to pay attention.

Maybe there is an idea circulating in the back of your brain you need to explore. Perhaps that farfetched dream of yours needs to be pursued. Don’t ignore those well-placed songs, conversations, or coincidences. Don’t stop reaching for greater things. Your Father isn’t giving up on your miracle and neither should you.

Do you have an example of God speaking to you? I’d love to hear your story! Leave it in the comments below.

Song Miracle performed by Unspoken. Publishing: © 2016 Centricity Music Publishing (ASCAP)/Jon Lowry designee/Wordspring Music, LLC & Fleauxmotion Music (SESAC), Writers: Chad Mattson, Jon Lowry and Tedd T. Full lyrics at Air1.com.

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