Through the Stillness

I flourish in the desert when I retreat, when I find refuge under the shade provided. Deep peace reemerges. Underlying joy re-expands. Thoughts decelerate and smoothly travel. Breathing becomes unrestricted. My vision clears and I see the next tree is not so far as my eyes once deceived.

Life has a way of stripping us down at times. It doesn’t matter what or why or how long. It doesn’t matter how strong the person. It can happen to anyone. Last week, a friend mentioned something she saw in a television show that made her think of life in general. It got me thinking. It made me reinforce something that’s been brewing in me. Sometimes all we need is to rest in the arms of the only one who can be steady. God. God is the only steady in our lives.

He is the only steady and he is the only unbreakable we know. Sin prevents us from living a life of perfection. In a sense, it turns all of us into glass. All it takes is one big rock or many smaller rocks to shatter us. We can be put back together, but there is nothing we can do to fully shield rocks from striking again.

I happen to love being a shield to others. I try to catch the rocks of life from shattering people. I cannot help but to help build people back up when they are shattered. I am that person to many. I feel blessed to be that person. I was made to be that person. I thank God for the gift of mercy and cannot imagine my life without it.

I am introverted, though. Not the kind who doesn’t like being around people. I love being around people. The thing is, I need time to recharge. I need time to retreat and rebuild my shield so I can care for others as I so long to do.

I’ve learned along the way that I can only shield so much at a time. I’ve struggled with this all my life. I know I don’t have the strength to do it any other way. It just so happens that recently I needed to be a shield for myself. More, I needed to allow God to hold me and be my shield. I needed to stop…completely stop and just exist for a bit. I felt vulnerable, more vulnerable than I have ever felt.

It somehow strengthened me. It strengthened my family as well. Through my stopping I felt led to do less living as the world draws you to. I actually began doing more living the way I feel led to. I broke my attachment to my phone and social media. I mean, to the point I keep forgetting my phone at home. I have never loved the idea of having a smartphone and all that goes with it. It is funny when you take a step back and see how much it becomes a part of your everyday life. It is funny how less distracted I feel. I am learning more and more that social norms are not always for me. I need never hesitate to stop and choose to do what I feel led to do and be.

The end.

There are times when I pray and pray. I follow the pull to do something and then things happen that are too inline to be a coincidence. This little series of mine has been another example of this. All I can do is shake my head at the timing of things.

I guess the best place to begin is with a poem I jotted down the other day to clear my mind:

I remember the you you once were.

That was the real you, the beautiful you.

The you who told me I was pretty when I didn’t feel so.

The you who was brilliant, funny, smart, and ambitious.

I don’t want to remember the you who slipped away.

The you trapped by the pains of this world.

The you that felt like a stranger the last we met.

The you that makes me hate this world.

The you that shows me my judgmental ways.

It was easier to walk away from someone like you.

They told me it was the smart choice.

Who needs that sort of trouble in their life?

I was “too good” to hang around that sort of trouble.

I wish I could have seen what I see now.

You didn’t ask for any of that.

No one does, no one would.

Still, I cannot push it all out of me.

The judgement is still there.

I would tell my kids to walk away too.

I know it is wrong.

We need to walk alongside those like you.

We need to fight the world together.

But, that would be too hard.

Wouldn’t it?

I wrote this about someone I was once very close to. I would run into her from time to time and we would hug, catch up, and exchange numbers. I would throw out an empty promise to keep in touch. In the back of my mind I would think of all the trouble she was. Trouble as in the real kind of trouble you try to steer your kids way from. Birds of a feather flock together and that would have been like trying to put hawk feathers with a cardinal. They just don’t flock together, you know?

I know Jesus chose to fly with all birds. That’s what made people turn their heads. It made many upset and furious and probably confused too. Jesus saw the larger picture, though. He saw the pain they never asked for. He saw the sin…but more…He saw beyond the sin. He saw the person, the real person, not the person this world has turned them into.

Can I ever be brave enough to do the same? Is there enough strength to keep standing each time I am knocked over? Am I able to hold my head high when I myself feel wrongly judged?

So, something happened to the person I wrote about that has me reevaluating. Something, the same something, happened to three people I was close to this last year that has me reevaluating what this world tells you is the smart thing to do.

Since this same thing happened to that many people in my life in such a short time, I feel I have a duty to dig deeper for the solution. Especially when it has caused so much grief that I haven’t been able to get past. I’ve seen the ripple effect it has caused since the others…and I now I know what is to come in the lives closest to this most recent one.

I don’t have the answers. I wish I had all the answers. The one thing I know is no one ever really chooses pain (sin) in life. We need to stop asking why people make the choices they make. Instead, we need to start asking why people feel they have no other choice than to do what they do. That’s where the answers lie. That is how we can see past their trouble and seek solutions. That is how we truly love our neighbors.

This has been a tough series because it very much slaps me in the face as well. It needs to be said, though. We all need to hear it. If we honestly evaluate the state of things that are coming to a head all at once, it tells us we need to step out of our safe little nests and fly against the wind of this world as Jesus did.

Romans 8:28 has been popping up everywhere lately. It is a verse, the verse, that reminds me of my grandparents the most. My grandpa got interviewed by his church after my grandma passed away. I remember the change in his voice and the pain in his eyes when he mentioned this was one of their favorites. He struggled and questioned God after my grandma passed away. He said he couldn’t find any good in her passing away. I’m sure he will never see this verse in the same light. Although I know the meaning is much deeper than thinking nothing bad will ever happen, neither will I.

My grandma was an amazing lady. When she said she was proud of me, it meant something. I still cry sometimes when I think of her. It is crazy, I never thought I was anything like her. The older I get, the more I see her in me. Maybe because the older I get the more I am comfortable with myself. I never saw her in me because I never saw me in myself.

So here I am reflecting on this verse and what I really need is to spend time in prayer. I need to read the surrounding verses. This is a hard one for me. When I think of this verse, I think the pain in my grandpa’s eyes. I think of my grandma and cry.