my unedited journal entry this morning:
June 24, 2019 Midland Station Coffee Gainesville, Georgia
Jesus, thank you for this week of REST! Of my people. Of leaning back into you and letting you hold my burdens.
That is what you showed me in worship last night. I can trust you to wrap around me and let my body relax. Lord, thank you for these days. I love you. You have blessed me abundantly. From coffee shops and Savannah Stoker, to picking people up from airports and going clubbing with Emily and my aunt, talking with Haven and Alley and Kelsey- normal life again. These people are my normal. I keep expecting to find it weird that we are blasting Taylor Swift in Alley’s car and driving around Georgia, sitting in a park, on a lawn, eating Chipotle. Instead, I’m weirded out by how fresh and crisp people look – honestly.
The birds flying over Sav’s backyard yesterday morning, the sleepy blue sky this. Abba, you’re inviting me to a true posture of rest. Resting well in you, being ever present. I delight in you, rejoice in you, Abba! My Father, you love me perfect. Dreamy morning shadows. Grand marble federal courthouse building across the street. Ceiling fans spinning on the bright wooden wall slats. Father, you are fueling me. The music too! Ben Rector is playing – wildfire.
Father, you’re dreamy. Father, this week, I want to hear people well and hear what You are saying. I want to love people really well and let you love me. I want to soak it all in like a sponge.
In Guatemala, Hannah Pauwels had a vision of me walking straight ahead, striving so hard for something that I missed all the little gifts You were tossing to me right and left. That’s the difference between me walking in my identity as a daughter of the Creator, embracing ups AND downs, leaning into You, being content where I am, and… perfection? I’m so content to rest here, in this chair, watching ceiling fan shadows on wooden slats in the morning light. I know you’re responsible for the sunrise on the other end of those shadows.
Holy Spirit, you’re here! Resting in me. Turning my life into a Melody. You show me when I do and don’t have capacity to ask people questions, and when I need to lay down in a park.
This morning, I’m starting to build up pressure about what time with you should look like. I say I’ve missed spending time with you.
I’m fighting the voice that says to rush, to do, to read my Bible right now because I haven’t yet. That I need to “catch up” with you. In all reality, I have spent time with you. You’ve been the thanks on my lips the last few days, my prayers in weak moments, the free window seat four hour nap on my flight. I am growing in intimacy and pressing into you, it simply hasn’t looked like I expected. It hasn’t been a set aside hour in the morning with my coffee and my Bible and my journal, until today. Thank you for this today. But thank you that you are always with me and for the time I am spending with you. Thank you that I don’t need this. I need you.
