Breathe, Just Breathe...

In a blink of an eye, it's now December 2016. The year is wrapping up. I have not been working (officially) for 9 months. I realize that my inability to work has really messed me up internally. Many nights I cry and plead to God, wondering why He would allow this to happen. There are so many things that I want to do. I want to serve Him! If He gave me a heart of compassion, why didn't He give me an able body to go with it?

Looking back, I think it was His plan for me to have my sessions with my Spiritual Director. I remember a session when I told her about this, and she asked me how I saw God in the event of me seemingly not doing anything. My response, "surely God doesn't want me to just sit around and not do anything". I saw God as the disciplinarian, the taskmaster who would be angry and disappointed at me for not working.

This year, the story of Mary and Martha has been coming back to me over and over again. And I've always related with Martha more than Mary. Martha the Do-er, in my perspective, was just trying to do things to please the Lord. So why shouldn't Mary join her in service? This year, I had to slowly learn and understand that Jesus was actually more pleased that Mary decided to sit at His feet, to commune with Him. The relationship was more important.

With my second sister returning from her CrossConnect training, she shared that we tend to be bogged down by all the things we have to do, how many lives we need to transform.

"Come, follow Me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19)

Jesus didn't say that we were to be fishers of men on our own. Jesus told the men he approached to join and follow Him. Over the next three years, apart from equipping them as His disciples, He showed them love and had a close relationship with his disciples. Never in the Bible did Jesus tell them to just do and get busy... but to BE. To BE his disciples. To LIVE as His disciples. To have that relationship with Him.

My sister shared this song which made me want to tear because it had the words, "to rest at His feet". I related with the song because it sang about feeling left behind and that there are so many things to do. Just the feeling of being overwhelmed...Truly, God has been speaking to me. That I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I've been pushing myself hard, to prove my worth, to make myself feel better by getting busy. It's still a struggle but I'm really trying to work on being OK with my current limitations.

I'd like to share the song here. The lyrics are in the video itself. May whoever who reads this find peace and comfort through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Chorus:

Breathe, just breathe
Come and rest at My feet
And be, just BE
Chaos calls but all you really need
Is to just breathe