over the past two and a half months i feel like i have been living at a nauseating speed with no room to grab a paper bag and relieve myself from the gut-wrenching busyness that shackles rest to the walls of my palace of demands - lord have mercy. with this lifestyle there is little room to tap away on my keyboard for the pure enjoyment of it. instead the only exercise my fingers see comes from titling every processed image from past photography gigs, or pouring out pages from a shallow well of comprehension in clumsy attempt to prop myself onto a theological standpoint that rises only as high as a single semester of studying enables. "bcm_001, bcm_oo2, bcm_oo3... arminian vs. calvin (i'm leaning towards arminian, but that could change with semester #2) aquinas and constantine". for the love of god, where is the poetry? or the mindless outpouring of a girl's inquisitions?
here it is. i am pausing my photography work - wait, that's a lie. i am simultaneously processing images while blogging. dear reader i hope this post makes sense and successfully expresses a conviction of heart that surfaced through a friend's obedience. let me know how i'm doing.
multiple times throughout scripture the lord calls, or commands us rather, to honor the sabbath and for some arrogant reason i think that i am the exception to this rule. and in my unconscious refusal to separate one day out of the week to breathe deeply, put my feet up and (god could i allow it??) watch a movie, lay in my prayer closet and listen to the sound of silence, read a book because i want to, or take a nap if i need to; i am left riding the never ending tilt-a-whirl of badgerings. and i have 42 new stress-zits to prove it. why do i do this to myself? my sister always asks me, "why do you feel like you need to be busy all of the time?". every time she asks me this i am tripped up by the way she structured her question. "why do you FEEL like you need to be busy...". being a deeply sensory based woman i can quite honestly say i do not feel like i need to be busy, it just happens to end up that way. but after hearing my sister ask me this question over and over i was forced to take an introspective look to find the answer.
in effort to keep from sprinting down an unnecessary rabbit trail i will summarize my discovery. after meditating on the reason for my busyness i ended with the revelation that i live such a maddening schedule in order that i may avoid hidden feelings. enough said about that, i'll save it for a separate post. that one moment of mediation spurred me to think more seriously about honoring the sabbath. i wonder, how much intimacy with christ i am missing because i choose every other idol in life before i choose time with him? am i failing to hear his voice because my fingers are plugging my ears as i go waltzing away from the one who bids me to rest? can i be the mentor i want to be to my lovely young ladies when i have no space to breathe? how can i love all my peanut-butter's (nieces and nephews) in the capacity that i long to when i fill my time slots with work? i have become a work-aholic and i didn't even know it.
a dear friend of mine that i greatly respect is daring to say no to the voices that scream from our crafted 'to-do lists', and he is choosing instead to obey christ's command by keeping a sabbath. through his obedience i am gently convicted and furthermore, i am allured into an invitation to rest. the way that i am affected by my friend's wise choice only solidifies my observations of the fact that the ways in which we live our lives, in one way or another, touches every person around us. good or bad, our choices have the ability to exude life and invite others to embrace it, or they carry the sting of selfish disobedience and fail miserably to point to the cross. though i have no clue what it looks like to hold a day of rest, or even how to begin, i crave it. i need it. and i need it because i cannot do anything without the strength of christ, though he knows how hard i try.
to my friend - i thank you for your obedience, it pierces my chaotic lifestyle.
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