My Quiet Thoughts

 

 Like the soothing repetition of waves against my skin.

There are moments in my day when I catch myself in my thoughts. The few minutes when the endless confusion of school, work, and faith slip away and only a lulling peace is left to wash over my mind. I atone it something like the feeling of waves moving back and forth across my skin, it soothes the ache and pain of the thinking and the stress with its natural repetition of up and down motions. There is no scholarly intelligence involved, only the caressing of wonder, awe, and curiosity. My mind drifts from island to island as I simply watch the world around me and wonder about the lives of others. I wonder about the future. I wonder about the past, the present, the obvious, the person I want to be, the person I am. I am able to catch a vague image of the woman I want to grow into in these moments. Someone who is gentle in spirit, strong in faith, abundant in love and compassion, and nurturing in hope. Someone who will stand by others when there is no one left to stand and listen. Someone who first chooses Christ and the cross, and allows the redeeming work of Jesus to help everything else fall into place.
But this person that I want to be is slow growing. I wait for her with a necessary patience that some days looks like one who waits for the harvest in the fall and other days like a child on the morning of Christmas Eve. The conflicting nature of sin and holiness rolls over in my mind as I see who I am and who I want to be standing next to each other in my moments of quiet.

Then the world comes into focus again and I realized I missed something. I missed something. This realization is often followed by a string of criticism and reprimand from myself because I know that now I will only have more studying to do, more socializing to mend, more sleep to lose, and more stress to gain.

The world is broken in many, many ways, but I feel that the brokenness I often forget about is the idea that I must be omnipresent in all areas of my life and that to do anything else is a sign of failure. I see the world passing me by and with every blink of my eyes there is another bar that is expected to be reached by my generation. So I run the race they ask of me and put my head down in order to not be bombarded by all the other things I must become in order to be successful.

“Only A’s will be accepted”, so I study harder.

“See that ‘perfect body’? Get that”, so I run faster.

“Look! A happy man and wife-they have it together”, so I search more.

“People having fun? You are alone”, so I force myself to smile.

These things scream at me every day and call out my failure at each misstep. It is in those precious few moments of clarity when there is only God and I that the shallowness of what I am pursuing is brought into perspective and I can’t help but feel broken and lost.

How many of you feel the same way? Do you feel the pressure of the expectations pushing against you grow heavier with each criticism from work and demand of your family? Do you feel obligated to be this perfect image of a man or woman who has it all together and can take on the world?

I believe that we best personify perfection and strength when we are honest about our weakness. When I admit that I am broken and wasted, a window is opened in which a Mighty God on a brilliant white horse can swoop in and rescue His crumbling bride. When I rely on Christ for my identity I can cast aside imperfection, because God tells me I am holy. When I rely on Christ for my strength I can cast aside weakness, because this strength never runs out.

I don’t want to view my life in hindsight seeing that I gave in to the world according to its demands. I don’t want to regret living a shallow life because I pursued the image of having it together. I want myself and those around me to know I am weak.

I sin. I fall short. I forget about God. I run the race of the world.

But I am growing like the harvest: slow and steady, with the patient hope that I will reap what I sow as I grow closer to God with each small gain of light.

You see, I have been in darkness. But now dawn is rising. And with it is the sound of trumpets as the Groom comes for His Bride.

What race will you run? From whom will you be sought after as a bride? To which garden will you sow?

The choice is yours. Time will keep moving. But the window will always be unlocked.

God bless your travels.

 

Carissa