Disruptive Moments?!?!

Disruptive moments

I think we all have them. Most of us find them annoying. Nothing good can come from the disorder or turmoil of having a planned schedule foiled. Right? 

That was my thinking on day two after surgery; staring at my calendar, knowing all my good intentions and planning were for naught. I had not planned well. My calendar was packed – appointments, teaching schedules, meeting with friends, writing assignments, social media updates, keeping in touch with family, and doing all those mundane, everyday chores. 

Well, halfway through day two, and out of total desperation, I picked up my Bible. It fell open to Jeremiah 29, and my eyes automatically went to the highlighted verse 11.

 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

I read and reread this many times, soaking in the words, marinating in the promises. Yes, I was going to be down for several days. My schedule would have to be erased and events penciled in for a later time. But what I realized was I had an opportunity to get re-centered. So while my body was healing from the surgery, I had the opportunity to create some precious moments with Jesus to refuel my soul. It was like an “aha” moment. That’s when I remembered Margaret Feinberg’s method of fighting back unsettling times with God’s light of joy.

Margaret is a wonderful teacher on recapturing God’s blessings when everything seems dark and out of control. You have to purpose yourself to poke holes in the dark and let in the light to fight back Satan’s darts of discontent, worry, and angst. It’s recovery time, not worry time. 

I’m on day nine. I’m still healing, physically and spiritually. It’s been a tremendous recovery on the spiritual realm. So here I am, praising God for disruptive moments, days, and more. I’ve enjoyed letting go and saturating in God’s love. What a wonderful, restorative choice to let God fill in all the desperate corners with Himself.  

Praying that you’ll sense God’s overflowing goodness toward you as you rest in His care.

Blessings,

A Pause

 

Pause.

(The only time I do this is when I walk into a room and stare, forgetting what I went there for.)

Pause.

(My yoga instructor said to go into a relaxation pose, close your eyes, and settle into the moment. I closed my eyes and got so uncomfortable I kept peeking to see if anyone was actually resting.)

Pause.

(My husband asks me if I think he’s still handsome, and I pause. Not because I don’t think he’s handsome, but it feels like a set-up.)

Pause.

Okay, you got it. I’m not comfortable with a pause. A deliberate pause causes me to feel I should be doing something. I mean what do you do with a pause, deliberate or not. It feels like an eternity of waiting . . . for what?

Silence can do the same thing. Isn’t that the most uncomfortable thing in the world? All I do is keep thinking about what I need to be doing. My mind goes into multiple tangents and vivid colors.

But not anymore.

For the last year, I have been purposing myself to pause, sink into silence, and meditate. There is no doubt that it has made a tremendous impact on my overall well-being. It is restorative, rejuvenating, and reclaiming. When my yoga instructor tells us to recline in a corpse pose, I flatten out, take two deep breaths, and clear out all the clutter and mess I’ve stored in my head. It exits just like when I hit the delete button on the computer. Gone!

Then I made another outstanding discovery. You don’t need to go to a yoga class to push the world away and refresh. Over the last year, I’ve had a lot of things happen that were unsettling. Rather than brew or become overly concerned, I’ve sought God in the essence of a sacred pause and silence.

I used the word reclaiming above. In the presence of holy moments, God helps you reclaim the joy to persevere through any concern you might have. You find Him in the pause.

The April 2015 issue of All You, capitalized on this idea in the article, “How I Overcame My Fear”. Lovelyn had been affected her whole life with fear because of a devastating car accident she witnessed as a child. It was through meditation that she reclaimed her life. The fear lost its foothold in her life, and she was able to do things she hadn’t done in years.

Pause. Silence. Meditation. These are wonderful measures we can capitalize on – gifts from God to help us with the pressures, strongholds, and temptations that we struggle with. It’s a way to “let it go!”

God bless you!