Be Quiet

"In silence we leave the many and return to the One." Mama Maggie Gobran

Silence is a state of mind.  It is a choice that I make regardless of my circumstances.  It is a reservoir deep within my being.  A soft and comfy landing that always awaits my return.  It feels like home and I have worn the path to its door countless times, sometimes gently strolling while other times running for my life.  The more I turn in and visit this inner place of peace and power the more easily accessible it is in the midst of daily challenges.  Finding the silence within my heart has not always been and is still not always easy.  It is a discipline and has taken years of practice to hone the skill of returning to the stillness of my soul and quieting my swirling mind.

I began meditating regularly when my 4th child was a baby; 10 years ago.  I felt as if my life depended on it and I was terrible at it.  I struggled and wrestled with every moment of it and the judgmental voice within me was brutal.  Instead of gaining a calm respite from my chaotic reality, it felt like going into a boxing ring with Rambo who bludgeoned and mocked me with every breath.  I clung tenaciously to my new tools that I had learned and eagerly anticipated the sound of the harp on my telephone which excused me from my time of torture/ training.  For some reason, I kept coming back for more, like a glutton for punishment.  

I remember praying that God’s peace would be in me.  I remember catching moments and glimpses of this glistening stillness pregnant with possibility and then like a pin prick on a bubble it was gone.  I would search desperately to find the quiet and it alluded me.  The peace that was as strong as a river one moment evaporated in the very next and I was back to my agitated reactionary self that I was trying desperately to take out with the trash.  There were impatient and reactive places in me that were as real as the nose on my face.  The more I tried to erase them the stronger they got.

This game of sitting and tasting stillness that was fleeting went on for years.  I am not sure when the shift happened, but it did.  One day I tasted a banquet of the peace that transcends human understanding in my quiet time, but the real gift was the fact that this stillness stayed with me as I got off my cushion and stepped into the world.  As I made breakfast and lunches for the kids and the familiar chaos and noise began to kick up dust and press my buttons, I returned to the stillness of my heart.  I breathed deeply and hummed a tune in my heart "I got peace like a river in my soul..." I have moments of forgetting every single day, but I have learned to be kind to myself in this lifelong journey toward abiding in the presence of God.  He is ever present awaiting my return.  Some days I need to turn back to him moment by moment and breath by breath and other times, His presence is so strong and steady that I couldn't miss him if I tried.  My hope in telling you this is to encourage you to stick with it as long as it takes, because the quality of life anchored in this stillness is worthy of the wait.

Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, turned water into wine. He was a very busy man and yet he made stillness and quiet a priority. He retreated regularly to be alone with his father.  This is meditation, and we are called to follow him.  I have made excuses and have heard every excuse in the book as to why people can’t or won’t meditate.  I challenge you today to begin.  Start small; a minute or two will do.  Set your phone timer, close your eyes and turn your attention to your breath.  Just begin to notice the breath entering and exiting the nose.  Let all of your attention rest on your life giving breath.  Breath translates as Spirit.  When you meditate in this way you are choosing to connect to the Holy Spirit that is within and all around you.  With each inhale, breathe in and invite the Light.  Soften to receive it.  With each exhale, let go.  Release the tension and the stress you are carrying in the form of thought, fear, control, bitterness, and pain in the body. There is a Chinese proverb that says “stress is who you think you are and relaxation is who you really are.”  Just BE in God’s peace!

Resistance to Care

Every time the flight attendant on the airplane instructs me to put the oxygen mask over my own face before tending to my children, it reminds me of the importance of self care.  This tendency to take care of ourselves first somehow gets lost in the daily acts of caring for all those around us.  It seems selfish and counter intuitive to do things for yourself.  Self care or asking for care is taboo in our culture.   Most of us are over-functioning and running on empty feeling exhausted and depleted and proud of the way we are getting it all done.  We are moving so quickly and don’t realize we have a need until we are broken down on the side of the road with no idea of how we got there.  This resistance to care is familiar to most human beings and it is the very thing we at SOW that… hope to eradicate.  When every person in the world takes better care of themselves, every person in the world will feel better taken care of.  Then, and only then, will we finally be able to take better care of others.  Caring for others begins with putting your oxygen mask on first!

How do you take care of you?  The first step is to “Be still and know.” When we enter the quiet and push pause on all activity, we learn the importance of being present and begin to experience the peace that is always there.  When you give yourself time to simply be, you begin to realize that you are enough as you are and that you are worthy of care.  Once you return to this simple truth, a profound paradigm shift happens and you are able to allow yourself to receive again. 

Why is it so hard to receive?  Brene Brown said that if you have a hard time receiving, you have unwittingly bound shame to need.  This is where the work begins!  The work of mining your story for the place where the vows were made and your heart turned to self preservation.  I remember being small and powerless.  I remember wanting much more and not having any ability to change that reality and so I cut out the need and the desire at the root.  Growing up in a household with 11 children created a bit of a scarcity complex and at the time, the vow I made to never need anything was good and helpful, but today it is not.  The work in identifying where the vow was made requires for you to enter the grief of the story.  To acknowledge what was hard and painful is to clear away debris so the light can enter again.  Where my heart once held despair and grief, it now has been enlarged to hold hope and desire.  This is not an easy task and with it comes much resistance.  We often want the end result of greater intimacy and freedom, but there seems to be a ten-foot brick wall between us and what we long for.  Our deepest desire in community is to be seen and loved, but for some reason, we hide and resist the love that’s extended.  Once you realize that you are blocking the flow of connection and love, you can finally begin to lay down your arms and humbly receive.

Name and acknowledge the resistance:  How do you feel about taking time for yourself or asking for care?

We invite you to join us for a night of self care where you will engage your body mind and Soul for the sake of integration, healing, and deep connection.  Click on "Classes" to learn about and sign up for our next connection night and our Mini Retreat coming up in June.  

LOVE YOURSELF

You are a child

Worthy of love

You have been chosen

By the father above

You are supported

Surrender the fear

You Belong

The community is here

You are forgiven

Whatever the crime

You are free

Now is your time

You are healthy

Mind, body, Soul

You are calm

Already whole

You are strong

Ready to soar

You are healed

Walk through the door

You are beautiful

Broken and bruised

You are restored

What will you do?

Such a time as this...

“And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this.”

— Esther 4:14

When I entered my story for the first time I did so reluctantly and found myself quickly overwhelmed and under attack.  I tried desperately to flee and find my way back to safety and security, to the comfort of not knowing.  I didn’t want to see what I saw and yet I wanted nothing more than to see clearly.  When I first checked in at the lay leader training for grief and trauma my leader asked “why are you here?”  I said, “I want to see clearly, so that I can help others see clearly.”  Although this was my true heart’s desire, it seemed like an impossible task, because I spent my entire life shrinking back and hiding.  When I was small, I saw too much too soon and the things that I was exposed to caused me great harm.  I was extremely sensitive and didn’t have the tools to discern and process, I just took it all in.  In an effort to self-preserve, I learned very young to cover my eyes, divert my gaze, turn inward, and disassociate from the chaos and violence around me.  Although this was a helpful and necessary tool that protected me as I child, I began to realize all the ways it was causing me harm in my grown up world.

Mothers need to be fully tuned in and engaged so that they can protect and care for their young.  As I began waking up to the truth of my story and the ways in which God was inviting me to heal and redeem my story, it was like the scales fell off my eyes and I saw all the ways I was escaping my difficult reality.  Through the narrative therapy and telling my story in the context of a loving and caring community, my brain began to heal and it significantly affected my ability to stay present in the chaos and challenges of parenting four children of my own.  It has significantly impacted all of my relationships and for that I am so grateful.  This alone would be enough for me, but God continues to use the work he has done in me for his glory.

 This summer, I had the opportunity to serve at the Royal Family Kids Camp with my 17 year old son, Jeremy.  The camp serves kids age 6-12 who are a part of the foster care system.  These are children who know pain and suffering, they know what it feels like to be dismissed and abandoned.  They have seen too much for their young minds to process and their small hearts to feel.  I was given the roll of “Dean” which allowed me a unique opportunity to serve both the 100 kids that were there and also the 100 counselors and support staff who were serving them.  The role felt overwhelming and I was bombarded with anxiety as the camp approached.  I doubted my skills and began to think that maybe I was no different than those kids.  I felt way too broken and damaged to be ministering to 200 people in such a tender space.  Faithfully, I stepped over the fear and I showed up at camp with a heart burning with desire to be used for the kingdom, to serve “the least of these,” and to whisper God’s truth into their broken hearts.  I was committed to stay present to see the needs of God’s people.  It was one of the best weeks of my life.  The highlight was the last night when I was given an opportunity to share a part of my story with the young girls around the camp fire.

When the director asked if I would be willing the day prior, I felt honored and terrified.  I had no idea what to share as I hadn’t prepared.  I told him I would pray about it and if God revealed something to me that I would do it.  I went to bed that night praying and when I awoke, I had a discrete memory of hiding underneath my bed as a little girl.  This is a story in which I had run away and nobody even noticed my absence.  I felt invisible! It lead me to the story of Sarai’s housemaid Hagar in the book of Genesis.  I had already claimed this story as a part of my own because in it, Hagar runs away, just like I did.  What struck me anew as I prepared to share with these kids and counselors was this:  “The angel of the Lord found her by a stream in the wilderness, he called her by name and asked: Where have you been and where are you going?” 16:7-8My story of hiding and being provided for, pursued and redeemed by a loving God intersected with a larger story of the gospel and the story of these children who could identify with the pain of being used or mistreated, they knew about hiding and running away from problems.  My own story that I wish I didn’t have to suffer became a beacon of hope to kids in the midst of the wilderness.  I was able to encourage them to remember this camp like a stream in the wilderness.  A place where God chose them and brought them to provision and abundant care, but also to look forward to where they were going.  Just like Sarai they needed to return home and submit.  They have been chosen and called to shine light and to trust in Gods provision and care in the midst of the wilderness.

God is faithful to rewrite and use the broken bits of our stories to heal and redeem his kingdom.  I wonder where God is inviting you to step out in faith and be used for a moment such as this.

Mirror Mirror

What do you see when you look in the mirror?  The evil queen in snow white went to the mirror to get affirmation.  She needed to be told that she was beautiful.  When she didn’t get the desired response of being the fairest of all, she turned wicked with envy and wanted to get rid of her competition.

    
 When I was young, I don’t remember thinking that I was very beautiful.  I didn’t spend much time looking into mirrors. I would rather be running around barefoot and making mud pies.  Yet there was a time I was gazing into a mirror in the bathroom behind a locked door.  It was my brother who usually caused me to escape into the bathroom so he wouldn’t get into trouble for making me cry.  I gazed right into the mirror.  I noticed my bright red nose and my tear soaked cheeks. But what calmed me every time was looking into my eyes.  I saw no evil in my eyes but something about them put a stop to the sobbing and soothed my pain.  I felt the presence of God and I didn’t even know His name.  This makes me sad on one hand and incredibly grateful on the other.

 Our good and gracious God gave me access to him.  I found safety from the storm that was raging around me as I perched on the bathroom sink staring into my own brown eyes.  This is amazing to me!  I discovered the sweet innocence and simplicity of my little girl.  I found the presence of God dwelling in my eyes.

The other day, we were playing a game called “Mirror Mirror” at kids’ yoga.  Children began by leading and following one another childlike motor movements.  They laughed and delighted while getting swept up in the movement and music.  This reminded me of the ways that I learned to follow God.  As a child I lived my life without any real awareness or concern of Him.  He, like a patient father, followed closely behind.  He picked me up and dusted me off each time I fell, assessing the damages and making sure I didn’t cause too much harm.  He was calling to me and guiding me even in my fierce independence and ignorance.

This is what I noticed as the children practiced leading and following.  They became connected and were moving together in synchronicity.  There was surrender as the children danced.  They were caught up in the flow of the Spirit.  They were free to experience and enjoy the fullness of life.  The same life that is promised to all who believe. 

Now as an adult woman I want to reflect the love, grace, mercy and beauty of   God. I see it in the dance of children…I see it in their eyes.  It has been rich for me to recapture the goodness of my childlike brown eyes.  I remember the girl behind those eyes and the God who was present with her always.  Yes, she has grown up to so much more from and for Him.  The wicked witch has no foothold in my mirror as I capture the beauty of God’s presence.  My hope is that she has no place in your mirror as well.  Take a look and see the goodness God is reflecting in your own eyes.