Recounting the Days

Hello, everyone!!! I'm finally back and ready to start writing for you regularly. While I was only gone for three weeks, and that's much shorter than the breaks some writers take, it felt like a long time to me. Even though I told myself I was taking a break from this blog for a while, I was no where close to fasting from writing in general. In fact, I took time to write and journal more frequently on my break, partially to keep my creative gears turning but also because, no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to put my pen down for long. Needless to say, though, I'm glad to be back and I can't wait to resume posting.

I want everyone reading these words right now to take a deep breath. Not a quick one, but a slow, measured, deep breath that fills your lungs with clean fresh air. Hold that breath as long as you can, till you can feel your lungs beginning to ache, then let it go. Slow and deliberate, feel the air come rushing out of you in a calm easy breeze. It feels good to breathe in deeply; the very act of inhaling is meant to clean you out and refresh your body. It keeps you relaxed, eliminates stress, and reminds you how wonderful fresh air is. Now imagine that you're so busy that you don't even have time to take a regular breath, let alone a slow, calculated, deep-cleansing one. Imagine that you're running from one activity to another at the speed of light, that you have to map out your schedule a month in advance in an effort to minimize surprises. And imagine how stressful it is when random wrenches get thrown in the works. All that, while it's a little exaggerated, was my schedule for the past three weeks.

I wasn't completely blindsided by all this busyness; in fact, I had planned most of it myself in an effort to avoid summer boredom. But when everything started happening in real time, I discovered that I was too tired to handle most of it. Every new week was full of dozens of tasks that I had to accomplish, I was tired most of the time, and near the end of my busy weeks I began to experience some physical pain as well (perhaps that was God's sign that I needed to take a break soon.) But, despite the busyness and the stress, I wouldn't trade this summer for the world. Throughout my busyness, I could feel God moving with me and I truly believe that he worked inside of me this summer. I wouldn't say God showed up in a big way, though, at the beginning of the summer I was hoping he would; instead, he moved slowly and quietly inside of my soul.

Before the summer began, I was really struggling in my faith. I was feeling listless and too comfortable in my relationship with God and, as a result, when stress and trials hit me, I was unprepared to hold onto him. It seemed that one trial after another kept showing up in my life, one problem followed immediately by another with no end in sight. My happy-normal and my comfortable faith were disrupted, which sent me into a downward spiral of depression and anger that I had never gone through before. I felt dizzy from the tailspin I was in and I can honestly say that I was angry with God for allowing things to happen. I was determined to figure out my faith and fix my listlessness after the summer ended and, in the meantime, I would just focus on how busy I was.

But that's when God decided to work on me. He knew that I would never listen to him if he spoke outright and he knew that I couldn't make it through the summer in the state I was in. So he stayed silent, but he worked in my heart. He prompted me to pick up my Bible and read it more diligently, he spoke to me when I forced myself to sit and listen, and he healed my heart of some deep wounds that I hadn't let heal. He knew my heart and knew that it needed him.

God's timing is much better than our own and he allows everything to happen for a reason. I believe that this summer he needed me to trust him more and to seek him more freely. He used my busy schedule to show me how much I needed to depend on him and he showed me that it is all right to let him carry me to the end of a busy time. At the beginning of the summer, I was angry at God for being dormant in my life, but after what he showed me I now realize that he was never the dormant one. He was always waiting to give me a helping hand; I just needed to ask for it and trust that it would be there.