Friday, February 15, 2019

There Is More To Life

Do you have people in your life who refresh you?
You know the kind of people I mean. 
Every experience you have with them
takes you to a deeper level of yourself,
while at the same time stretching you beyond self.
Contact with these touchstone people is always
enriching to us far beyond the beauty of the moment.
 The time spent with these individuals can be
anything from brief and lighthearted fun
 to talk of the serious things
life is currently throwing our way.
We share our greatest joys with these special friends
and we call them when our world suddenly shifts.
They say things like:
I'm leaving the house now...
I'll be there soon...
If they're long distance they send us texts:
I'm praying...
 How can I pray for you today?...
In the ebb and flow of our life
they are there... giving;
always, always giving from the part
of themselves that is real.
Each time they leave that essence of realness with us
 we store it up and treasure it, allowing it to strengthen us.
Over the years we can look back and see that we have been fortified
 along the way by these little sparkles of selfless love and energy that
God has breathed out through these incredible human vessels
 just when we have needed it the most.
It has revived us when we were weary.
We live in an age of so much that needs to be done
all of the time and as we find ourselves longing for rest,
we also find the to do list growing longer and longer.
But we need to carve out times of true rest for ourselves.
Precious moments spent in the presence
 of the One who created us.
Days and hours to relax, laugh, even cry
with these remarkable people
 God has so graciously blessed our lives with.
Relationships take time and energy and love.
As Gandhi said,
"There is more to life than merely increasing its speed."
We should be savoring life.
We cannot do that without being refreshed,
which starts with a very simple yet increasingly
hard thing to do...
rest.
Our rest begins at the feet of Jesus who says,
 "Come to me all who are weary and burdened,
and I will give you rest."
Matthew 11:28
In his book,
SABBATH
Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight
in our Busy Lives,
Wayne Muller says,
"The human spirit is naturally generous:
the instant we are filled, our first impulse is to be useful,
to be kind, to give something away...
Once people feel nourished and refreshed,
they cannot help but be kind; just so,
the world aches for the generosity of a well-rested people."
He goes further to say...
"When we cease our daily labor, other things -
love, friendship, prayer, touch, singing, rest -
can be born in the space created by our rest."

This weekend I hope you are able to start thinking of ways
to implement rest and moments of refreshment into your life.
We can't give out what we don't have to give.
I am so blessed to be on the receiving end of so many people
who are daily here for me with their love and encouragement.
I know that I must also have periods of vital rest
so in their time of need I am the one able to offer them
 the cup of refreshment
 they have so often let me drink freely from.
"Fervently love one another from the heart..."
1 Peter 1:22

"Just to be is a blessing.
Just to live is holy."
Rabbi Abraham Heschel

6 comments:

  1. Visiting you here today was just what I needed. Thank you for your wonderful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You bless me more than you know my friend.
      I love to think of you and Little Buddy and all the things just one week will bring to the two of you.

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  2. What a great thing to focus on, the things and people that refresh us- thank you for the mental shift! and those cookies look delicious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Julie for you kindness, as always.
      As for the cookies, those are my sister, Bridget's artwork.
      She does magical things with baked goods!

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Thank you for taking time to chat with me ~
Your comments make me so Happy!
Have a lovely day.
Danette