Idle and Blessed

Sometimes when we slow down, when we stoop down low and put our ear to the ground, we hear things we did not expect. Sometimes the things we hear are quiet and not as beautiful and we had imagined, even downright confusing and nonsensical. But we can hear them, distinguish them, all the same. Sometimes I go home to Spring Hill, and I spend Sunday afternoons on rocky dirt trails, and I walk around in the old cemetery I used to visit as a kid. It is a weird feeling to get away from the city, from the places I go and the things I do, because it puts spaces in the minutes of a day. Suddenly I don't need more hours; I need exactly 24, and there are blank white spaces within them into which I can draw things. And there is something in us - I think it's our soul - that responds to the things we hear this way. When we take time to listen to the river, to be alive in the woods, to notice how the wind blows the empty branches. I find sometimes I go through life all in my head, and...

“I am not all you need…to be happy always. I am not all you need to feel happy. But that’s not my goal, and that’s not who I am. I AM all you need to be alive – really alive – and to be sustained in that life. My Spirit is the source and spring and root of every good and perfect gift and you are sustained in it. If your body went without water it would die, but you would not. And that is the difference. I provide the things you think you need for survival, but when I remove them, your deep life is never in danger. Because you are mine, and no one in my presence is capable of truly perishing. “Suffering is different, and you are capable of that. Actually, expect it. Get comfortable with it because it’s where you learn the most important lessons and grow in the best ways. ‘Just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.’ Suffering is different than perishing. “When you are hit with hard situations, it pleases me most when you respond in an act of worship....

To Jenny, thank you for being constant. Thank you for being here every day, through the ugliness and the beauty. You’ve seen the parts of my heart that are very ugly, the threads of my inner workings that don’t yet have the glint of truth or redemption in them. You’ve heard some secrets and sins and you know what wakes me up at 2am. You’re the friend I don’t have to be careful around, the friend who is not afraid of my messiness, the friend who runs toward my heart and not away. I don’t have to worry about what you’ll think of me when you hear my craziness. You’ve heard it all. You’re not afraid. And I want you to know that because of you, I am not afraid either, and I’m facing all my imperfection and messiness with wide eyes. Because of you I believe God is enough for me. Because of you I believe God sits with us through our tears, gives us lots of small notes and gifts, and encourages our new adventures – because He's done it through you. To Kelsey, tha...