I think one of my biggest problems right now is that I don't know how to be still. Not really. I will send a prayer up to heaven or quick a quick verse of scripture but then I "get on" with life, never giving any of it a chance to really sink in, to really touch my heart and soul.
I fill my days and hours with dishes and laundry and kid and iphones and email and tweets and text messages and phone calls. Even when I do find what could be a peaceful moment-the kids are outside happy and content-perhaps I am folding laundry or doing dishes-but if I tried I could still open myself up in these moments. But instead in those moments I still to to fill the silence. I turn on music, loudly and then wonder whey I feel over-stimulated all the time.
Even the quiet hours after the kids are in bed are usually spent watching whatever sitcom DVD came in the mail that day. (I do love Netflix, not gonna lie.)
Today I am in Oregon, in a hotel room. no kids. No husband. No laundry. No dishes. No car. I had originally planned to grab my camera and go explore on foot and enjoy the solitude. But I told myself that instead I needed to dedicate myself to being still.
But it's 2:30 and I don't think I've been truly still yet.
I have spent time reading, emailing, sleeping, eating-but still not really taken the chance to just be still.
What am I so afraid of? I hope that once I get myself to that place of stillness that God will finally come into my soul and show me what I've been missing, fill that emptiness that I try to fill with noise. But even the busy-ness doesn't really fill up the empty. When I check my email or my tweets and there is nothing new I feel even more lonely, empty, disconnected. Social media is supposed to make the world seem smaller but so often it tend to make me feel even more isolated.
Maybe the problem is that although I hope God will come in and fill all my empty places, but I am not sure if I have enough faith for it to truly be so. And so I continue to keep myself busy instead of allowing myself to be still because then there is no chance for me to be disappointed.
Maybe I don't really know how to be still. Because I don't think that being still is a passive thing. I think being still takes effort-I'm just not sure how to do it.
I feel like I am at a major crossroad in my life right now. I believe that some amazing blessings and opportunities are on the horizon. And yet I feel a little like I'm floundering. Like I don't know which way to go in order to get those blessings and opportunities.
I've had to work so hard for so much of the good things in my life that perhaps I am scared that if I am not working hard enough the blessings and opportunities I yearn for will slip through my fingers.
And so I work and push and stress and tire myself out on life's treadmill, but fear that in the end it will be the stillness that brings the blessings. That they will only come when I finally stop trying to get them for myself and let God instead give them to me, as a gift. A sweet gift that He has always wanted to give me. A gift that I only need to ask for, if only I would be still enough to receive it.
Even the waves of the sea listened when the Savior said unto them, "Peace, be still." (Mark 4:39)
So why can't I?
4 comments:
I don't have the answer. But reading this really touched me and I realize I need to be still & let God have those moments to touch me.
"I've had to work so hard for so much of the good things in my life that perhaps I am scared that if I am not working hard enough the blessings and opportunities I yearn for will slip through my fingers. "
For once, I am speechless. It's a lesson I need to learn too.
Holly quoted exactly what I would have. I feel that too. If I'm not writing or creating or cleaning (although I tend to avoid that as much as I can) or grading papers or planning lessons or so many other --ings, then how can I receive what I want.
I don't have answers, but I have a practice that I've started recently that allows me to have some still time, some quiet time. In the morning, I don't hit my snooze button 4 times before I get up anymore. Instead, when the alarm goes off at 5, I sit up, turn on the bedside lamp, and just have some time to read a quiet book or to write or to just think. I only get about 25 minutes, but even that is 25 more minutes of "still time" that I didn't have before.
Love you, my friend and my cousin and the sister I never had. I can't wait to see where life takes you.
If only we all could be you and have this still time. Although still time sounds hard to do. I think you might be in the ready to make a big jump spot. Take the first step of faith and see where God takes you. While you're being still ask what He wants you to do, then go do it. Just a thought.
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