Discipline, Habits and Other "Encouraging" Words :-)

This morning the sky is still dark as it has been for the past 3 insomniac hours. I really don't mind the early morning hours as this is truly the only time our house is COMPLETELY quiet. 180 West Mulberry has been a house of activity the entire 9 years we have lived here and that is OK. Amidst the never ending laundry, dishes and creative artwork on the walls, I know there will come a day the house will become too quiet and I will miss this time when the kids are little and my parents are with us. I know this and try to drink it in and see the holy among the mundane, but truthfully some days are better than others :-) And some days I am better than other days.

So this morning, with stars still in the sky, I welcome the silence even if it means losing a couple of hours of sleep.

It is here in the quiet I can hear my own voice. My own heart. My own soul speaking. It is here I get a sense of the best of me and the awareness of where I've been less. It is here where I am not just a role I play in the world. I am not just a need-filler, a demand-responder, an out pour. It is here where I sit and sense the Divine and His love for me. And amazingly, my restless and wandering heart comes to rest.

If I am honest, which I have committed to be more of these days because who's going to be impressed with a show :-), if I am honest, I look outward way too much. It hasn't always been the case. Growing up I've been "accused" of being too sensitive, too mushy, too feel-y. Growing up I have spent much of my teenage years between the richness of friends and the inward reflective. I began my first journal when I was 14 and have continued it to this day. I loved writing down quotes and song lyrics that meant so much to me. I often did my homework in my room with some hit '80's radio station on, recording favorite songs on a cassette tape through my boom box. I have loved reading my entire life and especially loved books with great sentences and articulating what my heart seemed to want to shout out.

Growing up with it's increased responsibilities can slowly steal away the reflective parts of ourselves. The more our lives belong to roles and relationships, we can lose touch with the best parts of us that I believe is only audible in the silence. Where Heaven and Earth meet. Where God whispers and Love is found. It is only from this true sense do we give ourselves to the world around us.

I have given all of my adult years to the out pour of ministry and family. I have committed myself to people and needs and children and marriage and God. Somewhere along the journey I began a bad habit of seeing my life as only an out pour. Oh, I would teach and encourage and speak on the opposite. I would strongly encourage any who would listen to make sure you still your life to receive and drink in all that fills you. To not just serve God and others, but to KNOW God. And while I always believed that to the core of me, if you looked closely at the way I scheduled or lived out my days, the evidence would be convicting, and not in my favor :-)

I have always wanted and still do for my life  have impact for good and God. I have always been considering how can my short life here will count beyond me. In fact, the first day I arrived in Las Vegas to take a student ministries intern position, it was over 108 degrees and the house I was to be staying in had no air conditioning temporarily. I had just driven my very good friend to her sister's house in California and made the long journey home through the Mojave Desert alone and walked into an empty, hot house, knowing only 1 person in Las Vegas and as I looked through precious pictures of great friends and family I left behind, I said to God in the silence, "OK, Lord, Make it count".

It's been the cry of my heart that my life would be lived out in love and encouragement to the people around me. And I have no regrets. But somewhere along the way, the needed time to be alone and still often got squeezed out. I began, very subtly, to see myself as only something to give. And as I welcomed more and more opportunities and responsibilities, I was naive of how much I needed to up my game in the reflective part of me.

This is how I realized it. As I came to "mid-life" my conversations and thoughts have been just about "what will I DO this second part of my life?" I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with that. I believe it's good to look back and see where we are and are there dreams we would still like to fulfill. Nothing wrong in dreaming new dreams for second half living. But here's where it went wrong, I felt lost in it. I felt confused. I felt I didn't know the next steps. I couldn't hear my life speak anymore. And God wasn't giving me clear new marching orders.

I wrongly saw God and His involvement in my life as another responsibility. Another demand. Another out pour while all the while, He's my ...... and I struggle for words right now... He's IT! He's the Lover of my Soul. He is Father. He is Speaker. He is Life and Dreams and Hope. I cannot even put words to it. He has not been asking me to pick up my steno pad and take a letter. He's...... see, I cannot even write it this morning. :-)

I was challenged most recently by a man I respect so much to not worry about DOING great things, but to live fully BEING a great person. Greatness as defined by Jesus. To respond to the world around me, with whatever He leads me to. To drink deeply of this life and to see it with beautiful, purposeful and eternal eyes. To live fearlessly in the lives of people and needs and problems. But I can only do that if my life is first filled and centered and quiet. For it is from that place I move into my life.

So this day, as much as I do not like words of discipline and habit, I know each morning here, in the quiet, in front of my laptop with a keyboard waiting for me to form words and thoughts, each morning here, I will come. I will still. I will come to the feet of my Savior and listen.

Feel free to listen along :-)