Peace. Be still.
I did a lot this week. I had a lot of feelings. I went to work. I made some mistakes. I apologized for most of them pretty quickly. I made brownies. I watched a coworker drop a squash from the fifth floor. I edited some yearbook pages. I wrote some poetry. I graded some tests. I explained Moana to at least three more people who hadn’t heard how amazingly it connects to the Gospel. I slept a lot. I had leg spasms.
Each weekend, I try to think of a coherent storyline to present the significant things in my week, but there was so much disjointed activity, that I haven’t found a through line other than the peace that passes understanding when I soldier on through life’s stress.
Last night a student was headed home as the last light faded from the sky and the first stars came out. “Listen to the birds!” she told Emily and I, “You can hear so many!” We sat and listened, and I took a deep breath. By the time a coworker stopped by to pick up a promised brownie, there were more stars out, and he sat with his roommate for a few minutes to listen to me explain the Gospel message in Moana for the second time this week. He stopped for the brownies, not Moana, but we also all stared at the stars, and I took another deep breath. The birds were all quiet by then, but he pulled out his phone to share a photo he keeps with him of the night sky taken from his home in Uganda. It was stunning. At that COVID size restricted impromptu picnic table gathering, we could stories of night skies in five countries different hearts call home. We didn’t actually all talk about the stars in our respective heart homes, but I was thinking about it while I listened to stories of Polish hosts overfeeding guests, French families expecting daylong visitors, and Ugandan hospitality extending beyond timetables.
Later in the evening, Emily and I sat alone at the picnic bench, each with a glass of wine enjoying the silence and the stars. I took a deep breath. I shared with Emily how grateful I am to have the outdoor space to see the stars, to stare at the trees, and to breathe deeply. I found margin in my life that I didn’t know I needed, and I’m protecting that space to sit and take a deep breath.
I got a text as I was finishing my glass of wine, and I went inside to call a couple of my precious children who had just finished a prayer conference in Alabama. I’d woken up to a text from one of them who told me some exciting and overwhelming spiritual goodness that the Lord had dumped in her life that she wanted to process with me. Honestly, I’m so humbled and grateful that when this kiddo who has actually never met me face to face heard something from the Holy Spirit, she went to her husband and said, “How do we tell all this Hewett?” (Her husband refers to me as “Mother Hewett” or “Ima” which is Hebrew for mother, so she alternates between adding the “mother” when addressing me as well.) We debriefed for an hour before I took a deep breath and prayed for them.
Then I took another deep breath before I went to bed.
Then another deep breath.
Peace. Be still.
Selah.
And the rain keeps falling down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8cbI9jFGc&ab_channel=TrinityFellowship
