Your willingness to talk about your unique faith journeys, hesitant uncertainties, and surprise aha moments has opened doors for others to consider their own personal walk with Christ. I think it's fair to say that our borders are enlarging, we're pondering deep in our spirits, we're considering what it looks like to cultivate the practice of a Christ-honoring stillness in the dailyness of our crazily overloaded lives.
God is in the sacred business of continuously peeling back the layers of our wounded, tender, yet sometimes hardened hearts. Deeply in love with His beloved children, He faithfully beckons us to something more substantial and intimate in our relationship with Him.
For anything healthy takes root, grows upward, and bursts into bloom.
What's He inviting you to?
Who is He inviting you to be?
These two quotes from author Ruth Haley Barton caught my attention this week ...
Chapter 7 - Rest for the Soul
I find it inexplicable the way God comes to us and ministers to us when we are willing to trust ourselves to him. God's way of making his presence known and comforting us in such moments is as individualized and personal as each mother's way of holding and comforting her own child; it is a very intimate thing. Going all the way into the grief in God's presence left me feeling tender and vulnerable, but I could also sense that I was held safely. I felt empty and spent, but I also felt comforted by God's loving presence. I knew I was not alone in my grief. Nothing was fixed, but I was okay. I had not been swept away.
Chapter 8 - Emptiness
The gift of solitude ... is that I was able to walk into my emptiness and I didn't get lost in it. And I think that is what I am most afraid of - that I will get lost in the emptiness and stay in the wilderness forever. But that is not what happens. Instead, an imperceptible filling - hardly even noticeable - is taking place in my soul. While the experience of being empty is painful, emptiness is prerequisite to being filled. As it turns out, the presence of God is poured out most generously when there is space in our souls to receive him. In the vast emptiness of the human soul there is finally room for God.
Beyond Words
Beginnings
Resistance
Dangerously Tired
Book Open House #3
Rest for the Body
Rest for the Mind
Book Open House #5
Facing Ourselves
Pure Presence
Book Open House Conclusion
Receiving Guidance
For the Sake of Others
Book Open House #3
Rest for the Body
Rest for the Mind
Book Open House #5
Facing Ourselves
Pure Presence
Book Open House Conclusion
Receiving Guidance
For the Sake of Others
*
sharing solitude & silence
with
