Everything is quiet today. My mind isn’t screaming, my heart not racing, my feelings not forgotten, and my heart not exasperated. It is just quiet. Dare I say it is even still?
This is a vast change considering only two nights ago I was lying in bed, unable to sleep or lay still, and every sound was ear-piercing and felt chaotic. I even entertained the thought that the cars on the nearby highway were coming straight for me. My mind and body were anything but quiet. I haven’t sat in stillness in months because my fear and thoughts instantaneously take over and appear to have full control. It is hard to live in this state of being. Actually, impossible. It becomes hard to make any decision. It’s even hard to breathe.
“For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)
Sometimes I hate this verse simply because I don’t understand it. Or I feel forgotten. That I can’t shake the spirit of fear in me or get it out of my head. Like an annoying earworm. You know, when you keep singing the AutoZone jingle or Full House theme song. Sometimes I convince myself God forgot about me and ‘just happened’ to give me the spirit of fear. A mistake he can’t take credit for….or correct. However, when I actually listen to this verse, I realize, I too, get to have the spirit of a sound mind.
Today, I chose to procrastinate my To-Do List, grab a book, and lay out by the pool. Almost immediately I felt peaceful and quiet. There was no one else by the pool, no music, no sounds of construction…..just me, the water, and Anne Lamott (one of my favorite writers). By the time I realized I was melting in the Southern California heat, I found myself already submerged in the pool. As I let the water rise over my head, I could feel the crispness and hear the deafening silence water holds as it finds every inch of you. Everything around me and inside me became quiet. I was weightless. I could breathe again! I found comfort in swimming along the bottom; as if I was 8 years old again pretending to be the most colorful fish in the ocean. I felt like I had found out a secret I was never suppose to know: that the enemy is afraid of water. I could see the sun shining through the water and felt invincible moving through its rays. I was effortlessly moving again and the enemy couldn’t catch up. I was swimming in union with God, my body, and receiving a sound mind.
It’s easy for me to stop writing when I feel like I have nothing to say, nonetheless, nothing good to say. Maybe you feel the same way? I think we might be wrong. There is always something that needs to be said in your soul, it is just the way you express it that might look a little different. Today I got to express what my soul has been screaming, and it came in the form of swimming. I now get to write about something because I let God take me somewhere. I let him show me something where I wasn’t expecting anything. And as he breathed for me, I found peace, comfort, stillness, and light. Let him hold your breath for you a bit.
awaken 