I'm a hummingbird. I can't keep still. Even when it looks like I'm being still, I'm still flapping about. I can't do one thing for doing seven things simultaneously.
It's a blessing. But it's a curse also.
It means God and I are constantly having this debate where He's shouting at me to keep still and I'm being a stroppy toddler, stamping my feet because all I want to do is keep moving.
Are you like that? Are those words "Be still & know that I am a God" a challenge for you? They are for me.
It's a blessing. But it's a curse also.
It means God and I are constantly having this debate where He's shouting at me to keep still and I'm being a stroppy toddler, stamping my feet because all I want to do is keep moving.
Are you like that? Are those words "Be still & know that I am a God" a challenge for you? They are for me.
Because constantly moving becomes the acid test for success. At least, it does when you're a mom. And you work full-time. And you're rushing against the clock literally every day to get things done. But long before I became a mom, I had this problem. My default has always been activity. Commotion. The beautiful cacophony of a busy, harried life.
I developed my thirst for living this way as a teenager. I'd read in a Sharon Olds poem, I believe,the thought of someone not dying with unlived lives in their veins. And the Poetry of that idea fueled my tenacity for experience. It lulled me into a state of nomadism. Not necessarily just in relation to where I lived, but in relation to relationships as well.
I have this desire to experience everything I can. To see every place, to taste every dish, to read every book. To slurp life up greedily like the contents of a 7Eleven Big Gulp and to let it swim through me and in me. The saddest thing to me is the realization that no matter how hard I try, when I die, it will be without doing something I have wanted to do. It is just too impossible, otherwise.
This swirling vortex of things to do, things to see, thoughts to think is what usually occupies my brain. And normally, it's good. I like the random address where my mind lives, but sometimes, all of that wonder and awe creates noise that blocks my Creator. And sometimes, when you've got a parade going on outside your brain's house and a veritable circus in your mind's living room, it's hard to hear the mouse squeak telling you, challenging you to be still.
Growing up, I always thought that verse, that idea of being still pertained only to when you're waiting on God to answer prayers. But it doesn't. Every now and then it's nice to be still and get to know Him. To know how He shushes through the sun-ripended grass. To know His laughter like brooks tripping over the polished faces of pebbles. To know His assurance like the constancy of the sun and moon. To know His love and grace in the moments that are too beautiful for words. To know His righteousness at the end of the (figurative) chastening rod. To know His gentleness, His mercy, His compassion, His joy, His fear, His strength, His providence, His perfection.
And to be fueled and filled by it. Governed and directed by it. To take the challenge every now and then and to stop the maddening rush of life and to stand still as a lighthouse and take in the quiet in the crash of waves, the peaceful enveloping of all that blue above and below and to let it wash over and renew.
I developed my thirst for living this way as a teenager. I'd read in a Sharon Olds poem, I believe,the thought of someone not dying with unlived lives in their veins. And the Poetry of that idea fueled my tenacity for experience. It lulled me into a state of nomadism. Not necessarily just in relation to where I lived, but in relation to relationships as well.
I have this desire to experience everything I can. To see every place, to taste every dish, to read every book. To slurp life up greedily like the contents of a 7Eleven Big Gulp and to let it swim through me and in me. The saddest thing to me is the realization that no matter how hard I try, when I die, it will be without doing something I have wanted to do. It is just too impossible, otherwise.
This swirling vortex of things to do, things to see, thoughts to think is what usually occupies my brain. And normally, it's good. I like the random address where my mind lives, but sometimes, all of that wonder and awe creates noise that blocks my Creator. And sometimes, when you've got a parade going on outside your brain's house and a veritable circus in your mind's living room, it's hard to hear the mouse squeak telling you, challenging you to be still.
Growing up, I always thought that verse, that idea of being still pertained only to when you're waiting on God to answer prayers. But it doesn't. Every now and then it's nice to be still and get to know Him. To know how He shushes through the sun-ripended grass. To know His laughter like brooks tripping over the polished faces of pebbles. To know His assurance like the constancy of the sun and moon. To know His love and grace in the moments that are too beautiful for words. To know His righteousness at the end of the (figurative) chastening rod. To know His gentleness, His mercy, His compassion, His joy, His fear, His strength, His providence, His perfection.
And to be fueled and filled by it. Governed and directed by it. To take the challenge every now and then and to stop the maddening rush of life and to stand still as a lighthouse and take in the quiet in the crash of waves, the peaceful enveloping of all that blue above and below and to let it wash over and renew.