What’s all this about?!

Stillness in Motion.

It seems like a paradox, but in my life…it makes a LOT of sense. I have always struggled with being still. I am constantly in motion: running around to lesson plan for my classroom, make meals for myself for the week, get in my workout to stay fit & healthy, see my friends, go to small groups for community, and the list just keeps on going and going and going…

I thought that this endless motion would bring me fulfillment, but what I came to find instead, was exhaustion. All the things that I thought would bring me a feeling of success, satisfaction, and like I was in good health, are the exact things that made me feel so utterly tired physically, mentally, and spiritually. I kept fighting to get “ahead”, but my attempts to get “ahead” only left me using the times I could’ve rested, to keep working. I justified it, thinking, “If I can use this time to do (*insert unnecessary task here*), then I could rest tomorrow night!” So, as I’m sure you can reason, the rest never actually came until I was so burnt out, all that I could do was rest because I was sick or having a breakdown.

When COVID first came about, it was the end of the school year and I had so much quiet time in which I literally COULD NOT go anywhere or do the things I usually occupied my time with, so I was left with just stillness and silence.

In the stillness and silence, I found some of the most fruitful & fundamental lessons I’ve learned in my life so far, specifically, spiritual lessons. I learned so much about what true discipline looks like as I began to make my quiet time with God a priority for hours each morning, just reveling in His glory and the words He wanted me to hear and learn from Him. Whether that looked like going on a prayer walk around my neighborhood, singing worship songs on my yoga mat in the living room at 4am, or just sitting cuddled up on my couch with my bible, a pen, a fuzzy blanket, and some coffee…all of these became ways in which I felt, heard, and was able to lean more into God and what He was trying to teach me because I was FINALLY being STILL.

As school started up again, I found myself starting to slip back into those old habits of satisfying my flesh and not my spirit. I found myself scrolling through Facebook more than I was flipping through the pages of my bible. I was starting to compare myself again to others, feeling defeated for falling back into the pattern of my busy ways, and then I read Matthew 16:24 and had a thought…

I couldn’t help but think back to all the times I’ve considered deleting social media because of how much of my precious time it takes up. I know it CAN be a way to connect, but for me, it was helping me connect too much to the world, and distracting me from connecting to God. After reading Matthew 16:24, I felt convicted to come up with a list of what it SHOULD look like in my life to, as the verse goes…

1. Take up my cross
2. Deny myself

The main thing I learned from those lists, was that I had several distractions that needed to go, the first of which, was social media.

Of course, all the excuses popped into my mind right away…How would I stay connected to my family? How would I see what my friends were doing when I’m not able to see them so often in person? BUT, the thing is…if people want to be in your life, they WILL find a way, whether or not you have social media. My next excuse was that I love being able to use social media as an outlet to write and share when I feel like God speaks to me…and THAT is where this beautiful blog idea came about 🙂

I decided that rather than using social media for my own gain, I would use it to promote this blog so that I could (hopefully!) encourage others and share different truths and lessons I am learning in my daily devotionals and quiet time, which started to be more and more fruitful the more I sat still and was quiet. Hence, stillness in motion.

Stillness is not stagnant. It is so contrary to our culture and to what the world expects of us, but I encourage you to just take time to sit still, close your eyes, and pray. God is there, waiting for you to just show up. He has been there this whole time…