A Lenten Quieting

Does your heart long for blue skies

and

simplicity?

Is there a clutter

weighing

on

your mind?

It seems that everywhere I turn lately, people are lamenting over the stress and disruption ruling our days. If we aren't busy at work, then we are busy at leisure. If we aren't overwhelmed with finances, then we are overwhelmed with business choices. We have become a people named by Hurry and labeled by Over-Full.

Is this state of mind

a place where we are meant to dwell?

When the pace of my life came to a sudden, grinding halt a few years ago, because of my chronic illness diagnosis, I found myself grieving the busy way of life I was accustomed to living. I felt like the rest of the world was passing me by. But as I gradually came to an acceptance of the SLOW that would mark my days, and the PACE that I needed to maintain in order to have even a small amount of energy, I found that I didn't miss all of the busyness quite as much as I thought I would.

But, like an underlying current, I didn't see

the busyness still clinging to me.

My mind had never slowed

and my thoughts still flowed,

Ever rushing onward

Ever flooding full.

As this year began, and I searched my heart for a word, a direction given from the Lord, He spoke a word that I thought I had already mastered.

"Stillness" 

He said,

"Learn what it means to 

be still with Me."

Apparently, I had not mastered the art of stillness. For even though my body had slowed, my mind had not. It was never more clear to me how far I had to go, than when I first sat down to practice the Spiritual Discipline of Centering/Silent Prayer. One of my dear blogging friends, Joy Lenton, who blogs at: Words of Joy, spoke about an app for your phone that could help you begin the process of learning to sit in God's Presence for Silent/Centering Prayer. The app is offered through the resources at Contemplative Outreach. (You can check out their website for a wealth of information.) So, I excitedly downloaded the app, and read through some of their information.  

Yes! Of course I want more communion with God! Isn't this where I spend most of my prayer time anyway?

I know how to listen to God, so I will love to practice

being silent in His Presence.

What I discovered was that I loved to hear myself talk. 

I loved to ask God questions. I loved to look into His Word and listen to what He might say there. I loved to pray for my friends. I loved to pursue thought processes with the Lord as my guide.

But just to sit with Him in silence?

The minutes ticked by in agony that first day. This was most definitely something that did not come easily for me.  But as the days passed, and I learned to give myself grace for my errant thoughts, continuously pulling them back to the name of Jesus, I began to notice the Presence of Jesus there with me in a way I had not known before.  Quiet, hovering, and all-consuming, this was the God who would not be hurried, and would not be directed by my own terms or worries. 

Here was a LOVE

where peace began.

Here was a CALM

 where storms were stilled.

And I felt a nudging to walk with Jesus through these days in a new stillness, to learn more from HIS heart about peace.

Shortly after I began this process, a poetic stirring began in me that you may have been reading these past few weeks.  As my heart has hungered for words that would still my racing thoughts, poetry has met a deep longing planted years ago in my soul.   Looking through old recipes that had belonged to my Mother, I came across a spiral-bound notebook that flooded my mind with memories. I was suddenly a child again, watching my Mother cut poems out of magazines and newsletters, and pasting them into her journal.  But it was this page that stopped me in my tracks that day:

     

  

Whether the doodles

were made by my

childish hand,

or the hands of another,

the message was clear:

this longing for

STILLNESS

runs deep in my veins. 

   

Do you have a longing for the busy

to be stilled?

Is your mind tired of the

constant clutter?

Join me this month here,
on Thursdays, 

as we step closer to Easter,

and 

face the call towards Lent,

where we will seek to lay down our clutter

and take up His Communion.

Will you join me

as I turn towards Him
and learn more

of the call

to be still with Him?

 

"This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

 'In repentance and rest is your salvation,
    in quietness and trust is your strength'"
  Isaiah 30:15 NIV

If you are looking for a great Devotional during these days leading up to Easter, my blogging friend, Susan Shipe, who writes at: Hope, Heart, Home, has written a beautiful 40 day walk through this season. Find it at Amazon, here.

  
I am linking this week with:
Debbie Kitterman #TuneInThursday 

Surprised by Love

Have you ever felt your heart

whisked away into a surprising

and mysterious Love?

This is week 7 for the Book Study over at Michele Morin's site: Living Our Days, as she has invited us to join in for the discussion of C.S. Lewis' "Till We Have Faces." I must admit that after last week's (click here for my thoughts on that) intense passages, where Orual chose such a dark path, I had a hard time wanting to read what would happen next. So, when I finally picked up the book to read again, I was expecting to find the wasteland feelings that Orual was set to walk in. However, I was not expecting to find a bright spot in a love that was manifest in an almost hidden event.  

My own heart is finding a surprising Love

from my Dear Lord, as He persists in calling me to a place of Stillness in His Heart.

Orual and her Greek Slave/Tutor, "The Fox," continue to have a deep relationship, even as Orual faces the prospect of the King's imminent death, and her progression into becoming the Queen. As one of her first duties to protect the Kingdom, Orual is thrust into the prospect of a dangerous duel with a neighboring Kingdom's wicked Prince.  Of course, The Fox is against the prospect of Orual taking up the sword-fight herself, even though he finds out that she has been secretly coached by Bardia in the skill.  He argues with her, and pleads for her to give it up. But then the next day he approaches her with this thought, that could almost be brushed over in the quickness of the day's events:

"Daughter, I did badly last night. I think this offer to fight the Prince yourself is foolish, and what's more, unseemly. But I was wrong to weep and beg and try to force you by your Love. Love is not a thing to be so used."

I expected the story to stop, and for all to pay attention right then! Wasn't this the very thing that Oraul needed to hear about true love? Wasn't this the very thing that she had herself tried to force on Psyche in her own selfishness?  But no, the story moved on, and my heart was left to wonder at the brief encounter.  Until pages later, after the King finally succumbed to his illness, and Orual was made Queen, her first official duty was to grant her Dear Fox his freedom.  She realized what that freedom meant for one who had so longed for his own country for a lifetime of years. Oh! In her giving him that right, she faced not just Psyche gone forever, and not just years of wasteland ahead of her as she felt the god's anger with her, now she faced the very real possibility of one who had been more a true Father to her than her own Father had ever been, walking out of her life also. Of course he would choose the freedom of finding his own country again. Who would not?

I have known those longings

They feel as lifetime journeys

Even if time does not agree

The heart knows a different beat

And looks for a country

A Heaven Home

Fairer than any I see before me. 

 

 
But after a long night of inner struggles, The Fox meets Oraul with these words:

"Wish me well, daughter. For I have won a battle. What's best for his fellows must be best for a man. I am but a limb of the Whole and must work in the socket where I'm put. I'll stay."

And once again, C.S. Lewis had me weeping when I least expected to do so. From the heart of a Greek Slave, who held onto Philosophy and Rational Thinking as his sole foundation, he yet understood the depth of what True Love looked like.  He embraced his part in the Story, in Orual's life, as best for himself even if it required his own surrender.

How many times have I heard

my Lord whisper 

deep into my heart

"Choose the better way."

"Choose the way of Love."

 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

John 15:13 NIV 

 

In these days approaching the Season of Lent, 
My heart is drawn to the One who faced the ultimate test of True Love.

His heart won the battle

And gave what I could never give

The Truest Sacrifice 

of Love:
His Life for mine.

How will I respond
to Love that is so pure?

Could I choose 
to surrender my will for His?

Could we see 
What only Love would know,
Our hearts would run
to give Him all.

 If you are looking for a great Devotional
especially for the Lenten Season,
my blogging friend,
Susan Chamberlain Shipe,
has just finished this beautiful book.
Find it Here at Amazon.

If you are interested in reading any of the posts pertaining to the book study of C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, you can find an index to the series by clicking here.

 

I'm linking today over at:
#LiveFreeThursday, Suzie Eller