in the midst

I love being active. One of my rules at camp is that I will never drive to work. I live within a 1 min walk from my office so I refuse to drive. It has been pretty chilly up here some days and my nose hairs are frozen as soon as I step out my door. It is nice though to get out in the fresh mountain air. I do like my commute to work.

Every time I am walking and my boss drives by he asks if I want a ride. I turn him down most of the time because I like the walk. He still asks although he knows I will usually say no. He makes fun of my walking but he more calls it a run. He jokes that I am "running around camp all the time, seriously, running."(That could be a direct quote) He chuckles when I walk into the office out of breath from walking up the 'stairs of death' from the kitchen. He is constantly telling me to slow down. I find that hard.



There are some mornings that the walk and the view of the mountains or the fresh coat of snow sparkling in the sunrise makes me stop. I steady my pace and take a moment to look around. In those minutes I am alone. I feel the quiet of camp and the stillness. I use those moments and those walks early in the morning for prayer. But even when I am praying my mind can be going in 15 different directions.

Why am I so easily distracted? This year I want to emphasize on being still and listening. As soon as I find a moment where I am still I quickly find something to occupy my mind. I can't boil pasta without having something else to do while I wait. In the end it all comes down to waiting.

I am not a fan of waiting. Waiting is hard but it is something that happens in life. We wait for a phone call, we wait in line at a super market, we wait for traffic to move, we wait for dinner to be ready, we wait for new jobs, we wait for him or her to call back, we wait for a letter or we wait for the work day to be over. We all have waited for something.

Right now, I guess I can define my life as being in a season of waiting. I am not a fan. I am not good at sitting still. Sometimes instead of using the waiting we try and make things go faster. In traffic, if I am having a bad day, I catch myself bouncing up and down in the drivers seat somehow attempting to urge the other cars forward. I have to constantly be doing two or more things at once because to me waiting means standing still and standing still is not productive, it's not useful and it's not good.

Being still and waiting is important. I feel like I remember my parents telling me when I was younger that, "waiting won't kill you." God uses the stillness to speak to us. He can also use the chaos of our lives. There are times my prayers consist of something I need and then I make my request, thank God and move on. "When pray, be sure that you listen also. You have things you want to say to God but He also has things that he wants to say to you."

Listening usually requires being still. Imagine a friend that you are venting to about a problem you have and they are just pacing around the room cooking, cleaning or doing whatever. It sometimes makes it seem like they are not listening. Listening requires looking at someone and sitting with them and giving them your full attention. No matter what seems to be going on around you. Same goes for our relationship with God. It requires sitting and spending time with Him in order to hear what He has to say.

When I first was hit with 'be still' for my theme for 2015 I saw it as something I would be doing. I am seeing that it is something that God is trying to teach me how to do. I can tell you that it is a lot harder than it looks. This year is a season of waiting but God is teaching me how to use the waiting to listen and grow.