Tuesday, October 6, 2015

31 Days of Open Grace - Day 6

Tuesdays are hard. They are long. They are exhausting. I don't really feel like sitting to write. And yet on day six, it's what I've been thinking about all day. What will I write tonight? What will God and I unearth together today? How will the words move to unlock something in my soul? Because that's exactly what has been happening. I feel like a part of me is being set free, being renewed. And I love it.

And here's what I'm learning - There is a difference between sleep and rest. There is a difference between shutting down and renewal. A lack of activity is not the same as stillness and being alone is not the same as solitude. When I am weary, what I am really longing for is renewal, not escape. Oh how we have made escape seem like the answer! I think I just need a moment to myself. Let me just get away. I'd like to get lost in a book. None of these things are necessarily bad, but none of them are necessarily helpful either. The real question I need to be asking is this - Is this renewing for my soul?

What am I doing when I get a moment to myself or I get away or I lose myself in a book (or rather Netflix, because let's be real...)? Am I shutting out my emotions? Am I leaving myself empty? Or worse, am I choosing to replay the lies running through my head? Obsessing over mistakes I've made or ways that I'm worried or frustrated? Am I grabbing my shovel and digging a pit? Or am I opening myself up and breathing deep and drinking stillness like cool water? Am I savoring stories of hope and redemption? Am I reveling in Beauty? Am I being renewed?

That's what it comes down to when I come home at the end of the day. Am I opening up to be refilled and renewed? Or am I shutting down and closing myself off? Some days, closing off and shutting down makes a lot of sense. I want to save what little I have left, but it doesn't work that way. Manna rots when kept over night. So I must lay it out in the open and allow myself to be filled. And that's what this is for me.

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