The Benevolent "No"

Have you ever felt like everything was “no”? Go to buy a car, “no”. Go to take a nap, “no”. Go to plan a vacation, “no”. Go to apply for a promotion, “no”. When thing after thing falls through, from little to big, and it seems like a cosmic joke on you. When it seems everything you put your hand to is rejected by some invisible thumb, squashing your plans. When you sit back and assess, or explosively overthink as I am prone to, and you scratch your head in wonder of what scale you have unwittingly tipped out of your balance of favor. Why all the “no’s”? I really, really needed a “yes”, you feel me?

If you happen to live in Barbie’s Dream World where you wake up with perfectly set hair, nails un-chipped and a perpetually flat stomach, perhaps this line of questioning doesn’t apply. In my world, ahem, the real word, it seems the “no’s” come in waves.

About a year ago, I was offered a monumental “no” that I desperately wanted to be a “yes”. In my narrow field of vision, all I saw was a denial of something I perceived to be good, something precious. Why would this, of all things, be denied to me? This thing would not hurt anyone, I had put in an un-natural amount of work for it and by all standards of measurement it was a really good thing. Losing this was a crushing and monumental no. I ended up spending the remainder of last winter and a good portion of the spring and summer fixated on this “no”, allowing it to steal my joy and cripple my confidence.

Was this “no” just another meaningless rejection of a dream that would amount to nothing paired with months of avoidable pain? Or was this a meaningful no? A “no” that would pave the trail to a better dream? A good “no”? A benevolent “no”?

Is there such a thing? A good and benevolent “no”?

Now that the pain of my previous monumental “no” has subsided, I have taken many opportunities to envision what my life might have looked like had that “no” been a “yes”. Not one of those futures that I envisioned, had I gotten my way, would have been life giving and good. I would have lost my hard fought freedom, my core beliefs would not have been allowed to live freely inside me or expressed in my life, and a subdued hollow version of myself would be the woman before you today. Had this “no” been a “yes” what I believed would have led to fulfillment and purpose would have choked the life out of me. Turns out this “no” was not only good, it was benevolent. It spared me.

But where exactly did the “no” come from? Who has the authority over my life to dictate a good denial versus letting me have my way?

Isaiah speaks of a God who has compassion on his people, a God who guides and sustains when we would rather go our own way. He speaks of a God that lets what might seem a harsh rejection happen to us, when it turns out to be the more beneficial and lovely option of what could have been. He speaks of a God who could have said “yes” ten thousand times to a rebellious people, which would have led to their complete destruction. He says of this people that,

“…you will go out in gladness and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you will break forth into singing, and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.”

Isaiah 55:12

This amazing statement was made after God had gone round and round with this ridiculous pain-in-the-neck people. His response to their demanding countless bad “yesses” that they believed to be good dreams, was a promise of life that followed countless benevolent “no’s”.

It can be so frustrating and confusing when we seem to run into wall after wall, “no” after “no” while we are chasing dreams. What we want might seem so good and so right, yet we are denied time and again. What if there is someone big and loving, watching out for you who sees there is a better dream just up the road if only we would be OK with this one passing us by?

It might even come to us as the same dream only a little bit sweeter.

A little bit dreamier.

This is the promise of God. This is the end game of honoring the Benevolent “No”.

These photos to follow are, in large part, the result of the benevolent "no" I recieved last year. My dream home that God has blessed me with. To live in freedom and to be the full version of myself in. Here are some of my favorite vantage points of this beautiful gift of a home.