Wednesday, April 5, 2023
I guess I haven’t learned that yet
by Shauna Niequist, Author
Devotional by Pastor Carrie Baylis
“What’s happening inside of me? What’s happening around me? What might I need to learn or unlearn or face right now? Am I offering deep kindness and forgiveness toward myself, deep kindness and forgiveness for others? Am I tending lovingly to myself and others? What do I need to walk away from or walk toward? What requires my participation or voice?”
In #32 Shauna describes the story of winter turning to spring and how the transition seems to take so long. Like most transitions it comes with work for us to do, to be ready for it. She speaks of waking up and feeling unfeelable feelings and thinking the unthinkable thoughts, then offering forgiveness and then making space for what she desires to come from the day. It seems to me that if we could follow this routine each morning upon rising, we could make space for all of the new things to enter into our lives each day. In the quote above she takes an introspective look at how life comes at her and what she can take from it each day. I wonder if in each of the questions she asks we might find our way to rest in the answers; both in what the answers tell us and in what the answers free us to give up or away. To fully enter into sabbath rest I know that for some of us we have to leave nothing on the table, and that is okay. I encourage you to look at the questions at the beginning and see how you can work through them to free yourself for the time you need for restoration and rest.
Prayer: God of all seasons, you give us death and new life again through all the seasons and transitions of life in this world. Let us look at the ways that we might live into the transitions and seasons of our own life to leave behind that which is wilting and spring to new life with all that gives us restoration and rest. Amen.
First Thoughts at First 
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