There they were, a hundred thoughts louder than the buzz of the busy cafe I occupied, the doubts and apathy attaching its melody to the internal orchestra of fear. Then add to the soundtrack of life harmonising distractions all vying for attention. The thoughts, the problems, the bills, the schedules, the to do’s, the voices, the fears, the expectations, the dreams, the pursuit; all an ongoing cadence of white noise in our life. We all have white noise, somedays seem louder than others. Then we meet the silence found in wide open spaces. The wind whispering peace, the caverns echoing birdsong, a far away dim, dull glorious nothingness. It’s more deafening at first, but my ears soon find comfort in the drowning open space. I pulled up to the look out, after hopping two cafes… the intonation of hustle more than I could bare. I wanted the serenity my heart had been longing for, this peace found in the quiet, the stillness only nature and stopping brings.
Over the years I’ve learned to like my own company. Fear used to make me overbook my calendar, for being alone meant I’d accepted a deep lie within my soul as truth: if I am alone, I will be alone for the rest of my life and that loneliness would be too much to carry, so I best say yes to everyone… any anyone, and avoid having time to myself… or rather time alone. Even if it was a Saturday afternoon for an hour. It wasn’t until I read Henri Nouwen’s book Reaching Out that I realised what my soul was yearning for. Solitude: the quietening of my soul.
“The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
It’s here I appreciated the voice inside my mind was louder because I was afraid. Afraid of what I might find myself rehashing, or what perhaps might be revealed about who I truly am when the thinking cap comes off and I ooze thoughts I don’t like to engage in, the guilt I carried, memories and processing moment or even the hurt I don’t want to deal with, well… because it’s uncomfortable. It’s messy, and I quite like clean… and perfect… and I’m in leadership, people have expectations, I have an image to keep up and… I think I’m doing okay at that in this moment (even though I am solidly crumbling inside) so in seasons of my immaturity I kept up the facade and pushed it all back down, down, down… cue: smile. Everyone with a smile seems to have their stuff together right???!!! So I will smile and push, smile and push into the very depths, maybe to deal with at another point in time… and book out my calendar in the meantime.
Once I had kids the sleep deprivation awoke me to a daunting reality: I don’t actually have it all together as I once thought, and projected. I also really need time. Like, a. lot. of time – ironically alone time – to rejuvenate my heart fully. To fuel my soul. And to make sure my tank is being topped up before I give out. Burnout has a funny way of revealing I hadn’t been drip feeding my soul, I’d been outpouring in every facet of my life and waiting for a holiday that never seems to come. ‘It’s only a season’ can only last so long before things give way or the weight is too heavy to carry.
This lesson, being learned the hard way, is why I am passionate about sowing into others lives. To equip, encourage and prepare those who are giving out constantly, particularly in ministry, and create longevity to their race. But also, very deeply my own. We give out so much with very little realisation we might be protecting ourselves by pushing life and its mountains down into the deep pits of ourselves. Sooner or later we will take the break we’ve been longing for, but we are totally wrecked or the Sunday deadline pushes us back another week, another month, another year. The needs of the Kingdom are never ending and there will always be gaps around us, we have to use wisdom and guard ourselves against being the only one to fill them, all of the time. We need to restructure our lives in such a way creating pockets of time just for infill, for passion projects, for fun, for sleep, for pause, for creating for joy, for just being. I love the idea of retreat days, and whilst somewhat of a buzz word, they can easily be put in the ‘some day’ basket.
When we choose to quiet the noise in our everyday life we plan for a future where we are still in the race. When we make a habit of setting our selves up by planning and prioritising, we plan to win, and win with strength rather than barely making it over the finish line. I have to say I’m grateful to past me that set up a head of time where our holidays would fall. I’m thankful I marked out retreat days once a month where there is NO expectation I do anything BUT what fills me. I am also appreciating that Jesus [*insert coffee emoji] is on my weekly calendar Mon, Tues and Fri as my first client. Future me, is thankful for past me… I did something to set up these boundaries ahead of time. Because life. It’s relentless and pursuing. But so is God, He wants you to find a pace you can keep up with. His love for you is expansive and He doesn’t want you to be living a life of murky, bottom of the reservoir outpouring. It’s not too late to start making these small shifts to realign our self to Him and what He holds for us in the secret place. When we yield to rhythms of rest in the week to week, month to month we find we can operate out of a better space. The changes don’t have to be grandiose, but you do need to find your starting point. Mark out a time of day that works for you to remove yourself from your routine and find a new rhythm. It might look different each time you get away, and that is the nature of seasons in our lives – it will look different each time.
So sweet one, what is He whispering to your heart today? What is a simple change you can make in your week so you are operating from a place of rest? Keep me posted.
until next time… xox