This past weekend, I re-read the posts I wrote back in October 2012 when I was journeying to Captivating in Colorado for the very first time. I then read every post I have written since January 1, 2017. On the plane yesterday (I was in route from Little Rock - Dallas - Denver), I read my journal from Captivating 2012, cover to cover. Then, when I arrived in Salida, Colorado, yesterday afternoon, I got checked into my hotel and then walked straight down to the Headwaters of the Arkansas River. First. Thing.
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| Headwaters of Arkansas River, Salida, Colorado |
Then I breathed.
My chest hurt. My eyes were moist. I felt a bubbling of joy inside.
It hurt to breathe.
So I just kept breathing.
My phone rang.
My business partner calling.
*can't a girl get a break*
We spoke...actually he spoke....and then when he finished, I advised him on the topic at hand. Then, quietly and calmly, I said this...."I love you. We have a lot of decisions to make. Strategies to consider. Right now I am worthless to you, to everyone. I have poured out of myself until I am dry. Dry. I need these next four days to get filled back up. I need to hear God. I need assurance that the words I am sharing with you, with our team, are from him and not me. I need wisdom and rest and a word from above. As nicely as I can say this, 'I need you and the children to leave me alone.'"
He responded with, "Go. Enjoy. I won't call again. We got this."
Thank you - I half said/half breathed.
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| My View While On The Phone |
Why is it so hard for us to ask for a hot minute to rest?
Why is it so hard for those in our life to recognize that we cannot go at full throttle 24/7 without becoming dry?
Why??????
I love my life.
I love my healing.
I love the firm that I co-founded and built.
I love the promises God has put in my heart.
I hate that I still pour too much of myself out before filling back up. I hate that I let myself run dry.
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| ...soaking it all in... |
Colorado takes my very breath. I mean, still on the plane, as it comes into view, my mouth whispers, "There you are Colorado all blue and brown...and beautiful." It is spring. I have never been here in spring. It is equally as beautiful, and I am equally left breathless by it.
My chest BTW...still hurting this morning as I watch the sunrise over the water. It is something about the beauty being poured back into me. I let myself get so dry that it is like putting on stretchy jeans right out of the dryer....you have to sit in them a bit before they form to your body again.
Beauty is my breath.
It is my life force.
I need it. I need to capture it in photos. I need to write about it. I need to breathe it in. I need to touch it. I absolutely need to talk about it and share it.
I need beauty.
In beauty I also find rest.
Rest.
I have been tired for so long now, I am sick of hearing myself say it. It is not an "I need a good night's rest tired." It is a, I need to sit in quiet and breathe in nature for a month tired. It is an I don't know what to do with myself when I first get a bit of quiet. Yesterday, last night....oh my....you should have seen me. Ridiculous. I simply practiced taking deep breaths in silence as I walked around Salida, as I stared into the water, as I sat in my hotel room (which is beautiful)....just me and my breath. No music or television or distractions. Just me...and....my breath.
I am suddenly laughing as I type. Who admits to such ridiculousness? Me.
So here is the deal. I am driving into Captivating later today where I will spend four days on a mountain at a women's ministry retreat that 4 1/2 years ago recalibrated my life. It was the first time I felt God speak to me. It is where I met the C7. It is where I came to love silence. It is where I began to forgive God (which as some might recall, I didn't even know I was mad at). It is where I began to forgive myself. It is where I started learning about beauty and my soul. I am in desperate need of a refresher course...especially on that last one.
I am in love with so much of this life and healing God has given me over these past four years, but there is so much I have left to learn. Like what does a life unstructured look like for me? I have lived my life on a calendar for so long....specifically on a calendar where I built my life around my work instead of my work around my life. Can I even change that? If so, how?
My first experience with John Eldredge (founder of Ransomed Heart Ministries) was a CD a co-worker made me entitled "Spirt of the Age" and it was a teaching by John on busyness. I believe that was around 2009-2010. Imagine my surprise (*aghast I am*) that I feel like God is taking me back to the beginning....back to that first lesson because maybe while all of these other lessons have been VERY important. That one, that very first one, is the one that will help me now crossover from a life twisting in my brokenness to a life operating from wholeness and healing. Maybe that is the lesson I can hear, as if for the first time, TODAY with fresh ears, a fresh heart, and a broken/contrite spirit - none of which I had back in 2009 when I was living a life full throttle by my own volition. Maybe, just maybe, this is why God moved me to come back here now.
I just took another one of those deep breaths. My eyes are still moist, but the breaths are not hurting like they were yesterday.
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| Downtown Salida, Colorado - Perfection |
Four years ago I didn't want to live. That is the full truth of the matter. I wasn't suicidal insomuch as I just wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. Life had taken me out behind the wood shed and spanked me but good. After the conference in 2012, I decided to drive through Salida, Colorado, so I could see the Headwaters of the Arkansas River (river buff that I am), and I remember like it was yesterday the feeling of leaning over the bridge and looking in and feeling hope for the very first time in a long, long, long time. The beauty was magnificent, and still today I get comments on the photos I took that day (no one believes they were real). I guess coming back here (a day early and six hours out of my way) was really about reminding me of that hope, how far God and I have come, remembering beauty and breathing, and in some spiritual way - reminding me of the source of my LIFE - where my heart and love and breath - comes from, who it comes from....and maybe he is showing me the 'why' for this life of mine.
I am hearing a lot of "GO!" lately, but before one can go - sometimes they need to revisit. I see it a little like a rubberband being stretched backward before it gets projected forward. I think this retreat is the pulling me backwards before God can project me forward in the direction he wants me to go.
...and with that sentence my heart started racing.
*Deep Breath*
I look down at the water again. Isn't it amazing how it just keeps rolling, through different cities and states, expanding as it rolls on. Then it flows into the Mississippi, merging with others to become something bigger than itself, and it rolls on into the ocean, bigger still. Breathtaking really to think that the water I am gazing into now will in time be part of the ocean. What a journey it will have had, playing its part, nourishing the land and the wildlife, leaving a mark on both, refreshing and renewing, ripple after ripple.
I want to play my part. Well.
My wish for you this morning is to step away from the every day happenings of your life and soak up some beauty. God gave us this beautiful planet and beautiful people across it, and I want more of ALL of that in my life. Maybe you do too.
Now I need to go wipe my eyes and see if I can stop grinning long enough to brush my teeth. ;) Another side effect of beauty for me - giddiness.
I am so grateful God. Truly, spectacularly grateful.
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| More views like this for me today as I drive up to Captivating. |
Labels: Arkansas River, Beauty, Captivating, Captivating Women's Ministry Retreat, Colorado, Headwaters of Arkansas River, John Eldredge, Ransomed Heart Ministries, Rest, Salida Colorado
