Serving woman, loving woman,
Tree bending, swaying, season in, season out, in drought and in rain, holding tight to green. You give for seasons, years, like an ancient bristlecone pine,
Thousands of years old, still birthing seeds, expecting newness.
Were it not for shriveled soul, drying out in the desert sun.
Once you grew out full, reaching.
The autumn signals wintry rest arrival, the time for fattening up, storing up, physically, spiritually, emotionally.
Here in suburbia we are seasonal, but we have no real season to restore. Rest revives the weary in time for the coming life.
"Conscientiously 'wasting' time with God enables me to speak and act from greater strength, to forgive rather than nurse the latest bruise to my wounded ego...." -Brennan Manning, Abba's Child
Take the breath, Lord,
The one I keep spouting out, spitting itself into every conversation for affirmation, confirmation, answers.
What happens when it gets shut up?
What happens I wonder.
No more trying. Just listen.
Listen with a whole heart, not the half one.
Not the one that steps on everyone else because it can't hear itself think.
Take the Good book and a pen and yourself and shut yourself up away in a closet, a house, the great outdoors, your car.
You want to touch the Holy and feel His touch?
Retreat and lock the world out.
Even the people I want to help lift up. I want them to complete me.
I have to leave them behind. Because I must shut their voices out for a time and my own.
I want to be whole: to be available, to have an open door, to invite friends and strangers over, to do the good works my great God has prepared for my frail hands. I want to pour out love as wine into goblets for the poor in spirit. I want to enjoy squeezing my bum down the staticky slide and play with my little Spaceman and my wild Zebra girl.
I found an island once. I wandered. I prayed, then wrote. I wrote, then prayed. I tried to remember who I was. On a warm-watered beach in the North Atlantic, I realized I was empty-handed. All the expectations, all of my strivings, were dust---a centering place and moment that has brought me sanity, honesty, and home to worship and gratitude in the midst of panic attacks.
I come back to this moment in my mind. To the water, the waves, the emptiness I felt, the fullness. The being loved by a God who knows my bendings, swayings, and givings.
He asks nothing of me but to stay here, His, rooted and loved, and being and stop chasing. Stop chasing.
Serving woman, honest woman, loving, giving, pouring yourself out woman. Retreat and find rest for your weary weary soul.
Would you join me in consecrating half an hour of this week to be in absolute quiet with God? Only soft music if absolutely necessary. This is the practice of solitude, monkish and cavelike, deliberate and difficult. Be in His presence sparcely, a pen and paper to record any words He gives. No devo apps, no Bible study materials. Just God.
May He speak and restore.
- Christina H.
