Slow Simple Small
Slow, simple small. I am slipping
back into these three s's since returning to my school schedule of being taxi
driver, task keeper, homemaker and wife. As a professed rabbit by birth, I
traded my lucky rabbit’s foot in years ago for a turtle shell. Leading me into slowing down, sitting in the
simple and savoring the small.
"How do you do it?"
A friend asked as we sat on my front porch.
I explained to her that I have not always lived like the turtle. I actually use to take pride in my to do's
and loved seeing my calendar filled and checking off my accomplishments. When
face book came out, wow, just another way for me to pat myself on the back with updates and
statuses.
I shared with my friend how I was
being groomed to be more and do more for God in the world of recovery. A world where I had found freedom from my past addiction to not
only substances but performance. How
ironic then was it that I was being groomed for such a task?
The problem with that kind of
grooming was it was preparing me for relapsing back into a victim mentality and
sending me back to a prison no one could see, this time the bars would be my to
do’s created by a culture of have more, do more be more.
I was being commended for my works
and lifted up on an invisible pedestal as calls were coming in weekly for me to
speak, teach and train others. The roar of
the crowd was intoxicating and the apparent acceptance of even strangers gave
me a temporary high. My whole life I had suffered from the disease of "
not enough." Now, I was the person people were calling on and it felt
good.
The only problem with buying into
this behavior was that I started to believe what others were saying about me.
Treating me as if I had more value, better gifts and a direct line to the
creator of us all.
I started noticing a shift in
relationships as people started to rely on me for their truth and my silence
was not good enough. People would feel rejected when I did not spend time with
them and made references to me being to busy. Yet, I was only doing what they
all had encouraged me to do.
Finally I put a stop to it
all. I could not continue on the journey
of recovery and buy into the busyness that I was being groomed to live, all in
the name of the call and all at the cost of those I loved the most.
At a deeper level I understood that
my success, recognition and approval of others could not dictate my worth and
value. Though the longer I was living in
the ball of busyness bouncing around from here to there, I started to believe
the lie that my worth and value were based on my being busy.
I had to put the brakes on,
breathing had become difficult and my schedule beyond full. I looked around at my life and had to make a
decision. I finally decided what I
valued most and let go of what others were telling me to value, even at the cost of my reputation. I realized I no longer could live out what
others believed me to be.
That is when I stepped into the
slow, simple, small moments of my ordinary mundane life and watched while God
did an amazingly extraordinary work in my heart and soul. Through excepting the slow, simple, small
belief, I was given a new set of eyes. I could finally see why being still allowed us
to know God. I finally saw why simple
was powerful and profound, God uses just that to confound the wise. I finally saw why the abundance is found in
the small added up.
All of a sudden for the first time
in my life as I sat in the slow, simple, small moments I felt like I was
enough. For the first time in my life as
I sat in the ordinary pockets of my day I believed that I was brave, bold and beautiful.
I challenge you my readers, if you
have ended up at this post at this time to know that it is not by
accident. Embrace the slow, simple,
small moments of life. When you add them
all up, the result is abundant living, the kind that Jesus spoke of and the
reason He came.
Chaplain Cris
“Living In The Moment”
