Friday, July 11, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
For the knowing
I don't really like long days of silence and solitude. Correction: I don't even like one day of silence and solitude. For someone's whose instinct when life happens is to call someone and tell someone--good news, bad news, surprises, joys, angers--a whole day with no one to tell is lame to me (not to everyone, I know). Truth is, I do my best with people. My best ideas come when I'm talking out loud, I often figure out who I am in the company of those who know me best.
But the reality is that as much as people are good for me, it's easy to wrap my life around them. This week I found myself in that quiet but persistent urge for approval again, even in matters as dumb and subtle as wanting to defend my bookshelf because I'm not reading the "right" authors. I am wondering my position at letting women teach the youth but not the adults, of leading devotions and applications but not interpreting and preaching the word. I have in my hands my performance review of a job that takes deep heart and serious spirituality but I know if I'm going to do this for years more my roots had better sink deep, deeper than they are now.
And even with these specific needs and issues aside, I need to let my Creator speak. Spaces where I just be, where no one else speaks, hears or knows me remind me that, while my life is woven into the community around me, it is, at its best and at its purpose, fully centered around God. And in the middle of career decisions, resurfacing goals to please and perform to those around me, and awareness of doubts of who I am, no other voice will be more important.
So here's to silence. I know better than to set expectations for that day. But at the very least, I know that I need this.
But the reality is that as much as people are good for me, it's easy to wrap my life around them. This week I found myself in that quiet but persistent urge for approval again, even in matters as dumb and subtle as wanting to defend my bookshelf because I'm not reading the "right" authors. I am wondering my position at letting women teach the youth but not the adults, of leading devotions and applications but not interpreting and preaching the word. I have in my hands my performance review of a job that takes deep heart and serious spirituality but I know if I'm going to do this for years more my roots had better sink deep, deeper than they are now.
And even with these specific needs and issues aside, I need to let my Creator speak. Spaces where I just be, where no one else speaks, hears or knows me remind me that, while my life is woven into the community around me, it is, at its best and at its purpose, fully centered around God. And in the middle of career decisions, resurfacing goals to please and perform to those around me, and awareness of doubts of who I am, no other voice will be more important.
So here's to silence. I know better than to set expectations for that day. But at the very least, I know that I need this.
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