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”