Faith 66
Unknown
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 10} - Unknown
I'm living in a place of tension these days. As someone who lives to organize, I've always gravitated to planning everything to the extreme. Every moment of a vacation would be mapped out before the bags were packed. Packing lists and the children's schedules are prepared weeks ahead of time. I still like to have a plan but I've also come to see the joy in spontaneity.
Last spring when we took the kids camping for the first time I loved the freedom of just letting the day take us wherever it wanted. We just drove until we found a trail that looked nice and walked until we discovered the beauty of a waterfall we wanted to stop and enjoy for a while. We took leisurely strolls in the crisp mountain air and sat by the fire until we were tired. It was so relaxing to not have to stick to a plan, to just be free to enjoy the day as it came.
So much of our life is lived in the unknown as we prepare for an international move. People ask about our plan and we give the details in broad strokes, sounding more confident than we feel. We know that a million little details have to fall into place to make this plan work and we trust that it will. We try to plan accordingly. Yet so much of the planning can only be taken a day at a time.
If you had asked me years ago how I would feel about such a scenario, I would already feel the panic rising in my chest just thinking about it. But there is a strange calm in my spirit these days. I can only explain it by saying that it is a peace that passes understanding, a freedom in knowing we are held in the middle of God's will and that His plans are so much better than our own.
This tension between knowing the plans and trusting in the unknown is a strange place to be. I take a leap and trust He will be there to catch me.
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Post-it
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 9} - Post-it
Stacks of paper sat scattered all around me. I had emptied the contents of my bag onto the floor as I tried to sort out the notes I had made all week. I crumpled up one sticky note after another as I rewrote what was written on them into my new bullet journal.
My life had come to feel so fractured. Faith. Family. Work. Writing. The move we are preparing for. I had to-do lists for every area of my life and at the end of the day, my mind would race as I thought through all the lists. Did I miss something? Was there a deadline I forgot? Who was going to pay the price for my fractured thinking next?
I knew my inability to focus was coming from the way I had been trying to segment my life into categories of lists, reminders scattered around me on post-it notes. I was trying to unite all my lists into one, but my latest attempt to organize my muddy thoughts went so much deeper than that.
My soul felt fractured, too. Many of those notes had reminders to pray for a friend scribbled on them, but they often got lost at the bottom of the bag along with reminders of spirit week or that bill to pay. I knew the most important things were falling through the cracks—the urgent so often crowding out the important.
I asked God to give me an undivided heart to go with an unfragmented mind. I knew I couldn't live with my affections divided anymore. He had to be the center of all or the important would continue to get lost in the shuffle.
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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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