Faith 64
Muddle
31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 8} - Muddle
Half-way through the day I catch myself doing it. I have been sitting in my office staring at a screen for hours, not a single person crossing my path. I stand up and my muscles cry out, aching fo movement. My eyes are dry and my spirit is weak. I've just been muddling through the day, just getting through.
I have to set a timer on my phone to remind myself to take breaks. I remember Ann Voskamp's words that without hard stops life crashes. I know this to be true. I need moments where I stop what I am doing to reconnect with God, to come back to prayer and being aware of His Presence. He never leaves me but I so easily get caught up in the daily tasks in front of me that I relegate connection with Him to a long to-do list that never gets completed.
As I breathe life into my back, muscles tense from sitting so long, I breathe out a prayer to my Father. I know He's been patiently waiting for me to recognize that there is joy waiting for me in the midst of this day. I can keep just getting through the day or I can take hold of the beauty He's holding out to me in the middle of it.
The day can seem mindless, tedious. I have to work to make it otherwise.
Stop. Breathe.
Stop. Pray.
Stop. Choose joy.
Stop.
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Test
31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 7} - Test
I poured over the words with an urgent intensity, flipping pages, looking for the answers. For years I read the Bible this way as I filled up workbooks and Bible studies and my knowledge grew. I approached the Word like it was something I needed to conquer, as if I was studying for a test I wasn't sure when I would have to take.
After a while I knew so many of the answers but I had lost the awe I felt when flipping the thin pages, silky like flower petals between my fingers. In coming to the Bible like it was head knowledge I needed to learn, I forgot the way it was living. Jesus calls Himself the Word. He was there when the fist Word spoke everything into being. He became the Truth embodied. Every word out of His mouth was a truth not to be learned, but to be lived.
As I turn the words over in my mind, repeating just a few of them in lectio divina, I feel them take on life. One phrase will catch my attention and I stay there, not rushing on to check off how many chapters I've read today. I let the words settle into my heart and bring them back to God in prayer. For so long I was living like faith was a continual search for answers. Now I ask God to show me the right questions.
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You
31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 6} - You
I’ve spent my whole life wondering if I’ll ever know the fullness of who I am. I’ve tried to define myself by what I do. A dancer. An administrator. A writer. I’ve fit the mold of the relationships that mark me – daughter, sister, wife, mother. I am so far from who I was as a child. I thought I knew who I was as a teenager and that certainty makes me laugh now. I had no idea.
I wonder if I will be anything like I am now when my children are grown. Where will I be in 10 years? 20? Will I recognize myself then or will I again be someone so different?
I take comfort in the knowledge that He knew before I was born. And when my hair is gray and I don’t recognize my own face, He will still see me. I will still be the same one He created. He knows each day and each hair on my head. I may never fully know myself—any more than I can fully know Him.
But I can know that God does. He knows each thought before I think it and how the choices I make will shape who I will become. He knows me fully because it was His own hands that shaped me. And still He chose me.
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Silence
31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 5} - Silence
“Silence is spoken here,” the sign on the table says. We sit across from each other in the abbey dining room, my sister and I. We come to the monastery as often as we can but not nearly as often as we’d like. We chat for hours in the guest house living room or walking down by the lake. But in our rooms and in the dining room we observe silence along with the monks.
We speak with our eyes throughout the meal, smile or let out a little snicker. We come here for the silence and prayer but sometimes both of them are hard to make ourselves observe.
After breakfast she asks me if my mind races like hers when we sit in that silence or if I have learned how to keep my thoughts still. I laugh because I was wondering the exact same thing as song lyrics filled my mind or my thoughts wandered aimlessly. I wish I could make them be as silent as the abbey church. The way the stone walls echo with stillness is beautiful and haunting because I cannot seem to attain that kind of silence.
I look at the brothers who have devoted their lives to prayer and to stillness before God. I long to know if they have learned the secret yet. In the morning when the lights dim in the church and the only sound for half an hour are the creaking fans that circulate the air in this stone chapel—I want to ask them. But I stay silent. And I wonder.
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Brew
31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 4} - Brew
There’s something of ritual in it—the moment I hit that button and the tantalizing aroma begins to fill the air as the morning coffee brews. I didn’t like the taste of coffee until after college and then I would drink it on occasion. After I worked at a coffee shop all that changed.
The warmth of the mug in my hands, the creamy caramel color after the creamer mixes with the dark brew. I love all of these things. I look forward to my morning coffee but it is often poured into a travel mug as I rush out the door. School and work await.
But in the afternoons there is a slower pace. Sometimes my seven year old joins me, hot tea in her hands or trying to steal a sip of my sweet coffee. The kids know not to disturb me when I say “Just a few minutes, kids. I’m having my coffee.” It’s my sacred space, my time to unplug for a few minutes.
It’s a practice I have to work at even though I long for it—this slowing down. Like the caffeine that gets my brain working again, the still moments—if only as short as a five-minute coffee break—refuel my soul.
I turn the steaming cup up to my lips and breathe in. And then I exhale.
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