Purposeless wanderings

Today is a day of rest. A random off with no reason for the holiday from school. It's tempting to take those days off and try to shift into overdrive as though we have tricked ourselves into believing that days off are actually days to clear the to do list that looms over each of us. 

This is dangerous I believe. 

This is the way to build passionless, weary, burned out people. 

I was one of those. 

Days off are where you do things for no reason at all. The day where that horse you always see out in that field and you dream of feeding it, you go. You go and buy the largest bag of carrots and drive the fourty minutes with the windows down and you feed that horse. You giggle a lot and you realize later your face hurts from smiling constantly. 

You lie on that bookstore floor and surround yourself in piles of books. You dive into the words of those before you that dared to rest and soak up their world and therefore had the peacefulness to record it so eloquently for generations to indulge in. 

The day you go to the park and find your perfect spot where you can lie on your back and watch the planes land and at a certain point you laugh our loud when it seems as though they are so close, they might land on your belly. The engines roar and rattle every bone in your body. It's good. 

This is the day you decide cliff jumping is the best option. You jump and jump and it never gets old. The waters chill makes you feel so alive. 

This is the day you wander. You love. You leave your agenda at home. These are the days where your soul is being fed. The day that recharges, rebuilds, casts new visions. 

Grab one of these  

Carve these out and cling to them. 

Bring a friend or find the friend in yourself. It's good.  

No matter what just purposeless wandering. Go find it. 

Tattered page

I had a friend once tell me that after a gut wrenching heart break she sat down the next morning in the middle of her classroom after a night of tears and that deep pain that only arrives when the deepest of heart strings have been torn and when you feel it, you know it's in town for a while. She pulled out her green crayola marker and tore a piece of highlighter yellow butcher paper from the rack. She had enough. Enough being the one to keep everything in line. She was tired. She was ready. 

She took that marker and wrote all the things that she no longer wanted to do...Who she married. What her future held. What was important to her. She wrote out what she earnestly prayed for and left aside those things that didn't matter. She couldn't do it anymore. She was empty. 

As the clock approached the arrival of 22 smiling faces waiting for her love, instruction, and energy she put her marker away and folded her yellow paper with torn corners into her cabinet. She wiped her eyes, took a deep breath and got ready to face the day. She had to be here with them. They needed her. Her heart could wait. 

Fast forward 4 years. She shares her story as I see this yellow crinkled, faded paper framed in her 1912 comforting home. To me, I was confused what a shabby piece of paper was framed for as though it were a family photo. When I asked her she gently smiles and her eyes twinkle some. She looks away as though she forgot herself. She finally shares that four years later, she looks at this daily and sees every prayer answered. From the details of her husband to the healing of things in her life. She holds this here to remind her daily of the time she let it all go and got everything she wanted back. We serve a God who relentlessly pursues our heart. We fight it hard. We think we can. Then we hit the classroom floor, rock bottom where all we have is a tattered paper and a green marker. We have no where to turn but to our father. He doesn't say I told you so. He doesn't give you that look, he just welcomes you in. He wants it all. He doesn't relent until it's all. When he has it all,  He gives us more than we could imagined. 

Don't forget to frame those crinkled moments where we were at rock bottom and he pulled us up. Don't throw away that butcher paper and forget. The next time you're waiting for a breakthrough, look to those to remind you that we have a God who always comes through...that's my God. 

Whimsy

I'm a day dreamer. 

My brain wanders to far off places that are reality of the past or visions of what could come in the future. 

They can be scary. They can make me smile. They can make me laugh at my teenage self and realize how much time has gone by. They can be full of dreams of the future. Ideas for what's next. They can be of clouds or simple nothings. They can be haunting, they can show me how far I've come. They can make me smile and laugh at what is now or what my little student said to me once. 

I'm craving a day where nothing's planned. I wake up and head out. I walk down trails with no intention. I drive until my heart just tells me stop. I do things for no reason at all. I crave a day where my day dreams can over take me and send me into whatever world I'd like it to be that day. 

I crave a day of whimsy.