Want to Rest? DO Something!

Thursday October 25, 2012

Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?

Seems like if you want to rest, you should do nothing.

My reading of The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan convinced me otherwise.

If you’re busy, stressed, overloaded, and you don’t want to be, you first have to change your mind. Decide to make a change in your thinking.

But then you have to put that change into practice. Buchanan calls these practices “gestures which honor our fresh ways of perceiving.” He writes that such practices “make real our change of mind.”

One of the practices Buchanan suggests is paying attention.

Take time to look around, to see, to perceive. When we stop and look around, when we notice the small and appreciate what others see as insignificant, we can’t help but be content—rested—in what we have and do and are.

Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts got me thinking about paying attention, about the small and seemingly insignificant. As I mentally listed the little things around me and gave thanks for them, my Creator loomed larger. He was responsible for so much more than I had even considered. I saw that He has gifted me and my world with SO much.

How could I not be content, rested?

So, look around you, take in the small, be grateful, and join in the rest.

The Gift of Exile

Friday June 15, 2012

How can exile be a gift? My quote today sheds some light on that…

I’m linking up today with Susanne over at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five. It’s been a quiet week here, but sometimes, that’s just what you need.

Here are my favorites this week:

1. Friends who take you to lunch. Just did that yesterday. A dear friend and I had lunch together and the food and the fellowship was great. Good for me to get out a bit, too.

2. A caring doctor. I’m so thankful for the orthopedic doctor who’s following Andrew for us. His wife and I have been friends for years and I taught his children while he cared for our boys’ football injuries. He just takes time and care with us, and we so appreciate it.

3. Another Rutherfurd book in the wings. I’m waiting to pick this one up at the library—hopefully this weekend. It’s The Forest, which follows England from the Norman Conquest to 1900. Can’t wait!

4. Time together at home. My husband sometimes works in the evenings and has to miss dinner. Last week he had quite a bit of evening work and I missed him! This week he’s been home almost every evening, and it’s been great.

5. This quote:

"And the longer I live, the more I feel like an exile. This is a gift. The exiled make His extravagant love their home." (Ann Voskamp)

A gift indeed, if it drives me to His extravagant love!

Wishing that love for you this week,


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Words That Make Me Think

Tuesday August 2, 2011

Doesn’t this sound familiar?

“I gasp for more time, frantic for more time. But I have to wonder: more time for more what?”

How about this?

“But, someone, please give me—who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew—”

I just finished chapters 2 and 3 of Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, and you can see how it speaks to my heart. It’s like a bud that gradually unfolds, the way Ann shares her journey and I see its necessity.

She stumbles on the Greek word eucharisteo, meaning thanksgiving and she writes, “…how else do we accept His free gift of salvation if not with thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is the evidence of our acceptance of whatever He gives.”

Whatever He gives—the big and the small.

If those lists of the everyday seem trivial to you, consider this: “Why would the world need more anger, more outrage?…Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring the fullest Light to all the world.”

See what I mean? Her words make me think.
And I love it.

What about you? Did any of those quotes pique your interest? Are you reading something thought-provoking right now?


Linking up with Jen at Finding Heaven Today for Soli deo Gloria. Click on over and come along with us!

We choose.

Tuesday July 26, 2011We choose.

My sons’ favorite preschool teacher believed in empowering children, even at a tender age. She instilled responsibility ever-so-gently by giving them the power to choose.

Of course, she strongly suggested the right choice as she reminded the children, “We choose to obey.” (There was the day one of my boys calmly replied, “I choose to disobey.” I was mortified; you can read about my recovery here.)

Giving children the opportunity to choose seems a small thing, but not an insignificant one. It illustrates a truth that runs throughout our lives.

I’m not saying we have power over everything that happens; far from it. But with each joy or pain that befalls us, we have the ability to choose.

I’m just now reading One Thousand Gifts. Yes, I know. I’m a bit late to the party. But it's summer, and I have time to linger, to relish.

The first chapter is called “An Emptier, Fuller Life.” I do love a paradox. Putting those two words next to each other (emptier, fuller) just intrigues me.

Ann Voskamp relates how she chose to say no to God in the face of pain and loss. My subconscious is saying, “Well, I haven’t had that experience,” and then she writes, “If I’m ruthlessly honest, I may have said yes to God, yes to Christianty, but really, I have lived the no.” She speaks having a loss of central vision, of hungering for filling in a world that is starved. I can’t argue there.

We choose—to live in a world that lacks His power, to live the no or we choose see Him in the holes and have communion there.

I choose the holes. Won’t you peek through with me and sit at His feet?

Linking up with Jen at Finding Heaven Today for Soli deo Gloria. Click on over and come along with us!