resting

so, i may have chosen the absolute most wrong time to make an attempt on jump-starting this little blog here. for the past two weeks or so my life has consisted of work and hee haw practice/shows. i won't get into what hee haw is, other than the fact that it's a show my community does as a fundraiser for the american cancer society. this is its thirtieth year and i'm proud to have been a part of it, but it has been a surprising source of stress. after doing the sound of music last fall, the christmas review in december and this show last week, i'm at a loss as to how to emphasize just how hard it is to have a full-time job and be involved in the arts. and not only that, but being a freshly-graduated university student who has moved back in with her parents for a year with no time to herself is verging on unbearably overwhelming and, well... downright irritating. i am still very much under the thumb and at times i feel like i'm suffocating.

this is how i felt a couple days ago. if time and space were water and air, you could say i was choking miserably for a lack of both. i needed peace.. respite.. retreat. i needed time to think, ponder and pray over several things in my life that had gone untouched for almost two weeks; the foremost of those being the reading i was to have finished for my tuesday night bible study. we're reading Darryl Tippens' Pilgrim Heart and i can already say that i have been greatly blessed by this study. without going into too much detail, the gist of the book is to acknowledge "the interior dimensions to spiritual growth, [and celebrate] incarnational practices that fully honor the social, practical and embodied aspects of the Way of Jesus", thus, possessing a pilgrim heart.

with that in mind, my focus lately has been a sense of acknowledging the comprehensive nature of actually being a Christian and to me that would involve a constant awareness of God in my life, realizing that in every instance i am given the opportunity to recognize his presence in my life and show that in my lifestyle. i could feel myself neglecting this mentality of embodying Christ's teachings over the past two weeks. even at sunday morning services, with friends and relatives visiting because of the show over the weekend, i found it hard to really focus on the Lord. at lunch that day, i was reminded of how Christ went to the mount of olives to pray, even while crowds were flocking to hear him, and all i could think was: i need to retreat up into the mountain.

and so it was that i made up my mind to devote my afternoon to catching up on my bible study reading, to getting into the word and to prayer. the afternoon had turned sunny and i opened up the book to chapter five: "resting: the day sabbath becomes joy". i was amazed. as it turns out, what i had been craving was exactly what i was about to be fed. and what's better is that chapter six was merely a continuation of the former. my afternoon's focus was completely on the importance of sabbath in our everyday lives. in these chapters, tippens discusses eight beatitudes for our time which were essentially paradoxical expressions modeled after the originals in matthew 5. and although they were all very well expressed, it was the first one that made the biggest impression on me:

Happy are those who serve the world by abandoning it for a little while.

or "Blessed are those who enter silence, for they will hear God." i was struck by this concept mainly because of the nature of our lives today - the 24/7 life our culture inspires - and how i had been suffering from it. all too often we forget how pointless it is to constantly spin our wheels... choosing quantity over quality. tippens quotes thomas merton: "True solitude is the home of the person, false solitude is the refuge of the individualist." it is pointed out here that true solitude is a place in which we can reside... it is not a vain escape from life. it is a place that we need. allowing this peace of mind to remain constant in our lives is necessary so that we may better commune with other Christians and serve the world around us. as tippens rounds out the sixth chapter of his book he writes, "...every pilgrim heart shares the same essential need of [sabbath]. Answering Jesus' quiet invitation is the place to begin: "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while" (Mark 6:31). If we hear and obey, we will be blessed indeed."

it is with those closing words that i was encouraged to accept the precious time i had been given to reflect on what it means to truly experience being still and knowing He is God (Ps. 46:10) for there truly is no greater blessing than to know that the Lord holds us in his hand.