Learning The Language Of Rest

What would the architecture of my life look like if it was built to exist from a place of rest?

I stole away from the city and headed straight for the quietest place I could find on short notice. Finding myself spending a night in a simple, and thoughtful cottage near the Shenandoah Mountains. It was long overdue and exactly right all at once, it always is.

I went as quiet as the world would allow for twenty-four hours at a retreat called Corhaven, provided by the generosity of community within IJM. I had hit a space within me that demanded rest, solitude….space. Everything had begun to feel a little too much and my soul deeply needed the quiet. Hearing the whisper of “come away and rest” over and over through the week, I answered and leaned all the way in.

A few weeks prior I had hit an internal wall in the midst of what seemed like a “longer than it should be” season, one that has felt like getting my butt kicked. I had hit a wall– mentally, emotionally, spiritually. After running hard at the task before me for nine months, on the heels of a destabilizing year full of transition, and a summer filled with; change, a cherished family member battling cancer, stepping into yet another new city (my 12th to be exact), new team, new chapter. Followed by a season of intense stretching and growth, personally and professionally. Event writing all of that I wonder if perhaps hitting the wall was inevitable.

I was not even caught off guard by the difficult aspects of this season, as I’ve learned that when God sends you into something there is almost always healing involved for you, and often others. I was though, surprised at the depth of some of the harder days. I walked into this new adventure with the sincere intention to be fully present and give this my whole heart. I have and would do it all over again.

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I sat in front of an old fireplace tucked in the corner of a room, watching the flames in the quiet for five hours. Simply needing the world to be still, even more so that my mind could quiet.

This day of stillness felt vital to catch my breath, and it’s in the quiet where I began to acknowledge all that I’d been processing through, all that was sitting on the surface of my heart waiting for space. In the quiet I asked myself; how many times have I had to escape day-to-day life to recover rest, balance? My answer…. forever. This pursuit of quiet and escaping the noise started with late nights sitting by the ocean in Southwest Florida the moment I was old enough to drive.

I began to think through what life, what would I be like if I lived out of a place of rest versus out of trying to recover rest?  How would that impact the work I put my hands too, my community, my family, my health?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? I wonder what you’re answer would be.

I started to ask myself –  What would the architecture of my life look like if it was built to exist from a place of rest?

Some dreams that had been dormant for a long time breathed back to life in response (ones I’ll save for another time).

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I left my day away with the sense that light was reappearing, my mind, heart and soul had begun to breathe again. Something changed in me on that drive back to DC, as I was taking back the knowledge that if I was to live out of a place of rest my life would begin to take a very different shape.

I stole away to find rest, took a deep breath and was reminded of how I never want to forget the significance of this chapter. I am being stretched in creativity, in leadership, relationships, humility, self-compassion, and surrender in ways I have yet to experience. This chapter is filled with gifts that look like working alongside quite literally some of the bravest people in the world at IJM. Living in a haven of a beautiful home that feels like as though it’s out of a dream – set two blocks behind the US Capitol and Supreme Court. Being able to live day to day life with a few of my best friends, in a city that I’ve loved since I was fourteen –  it’s wonder and abundance, and invitation to grow in ways I never knew possible.

Yet I think the greater significance is that in the midst of what could be considered the most intense project I’ve ever taken on, in a city that demands high impact and depletes a sense of balance, God is calling me into a season of rest. When look back on this season years from now I have a sense it will be marked as the pivot point for that all that lay behind me and all that is yet to come.

One of my favorite things to do is to build things and see how to help them become beautiful, as they were created to be. I inherited that from my father, though it has manifested very differently in my world – yet I see the mark of the same gift in me, one I hope to use for good, always

Now, the invitation is to dream and learn what the architecture of living out of a place of rest can look like. I cannot wait to see what meets me in the pursuit of it all.