Rest.

Sometimes it feels like my mind is a three-ring circus.  Instead of jugglers and elephants and clowns, I have worries and fears and doubts.  I have questions and passing glances of the meaning of moments.  To explain everything that has been weighing on my mind recently would cause me to be too personal for good taste.  But I'm sure that, without explaining details, you understand what I'm talking about when I say it feels like your heart and mind are tea kettles, whistling at the top of their lungs, screaming for some release before they explode.  

I've been walking around, feeling like this, for the past few weeks.  With each day planned, my time and activities were dictated.  I had no time to just settle my thoughts, to sit with God and run thoroughly through each issue that seemed to be eating away at me.  So, in an effort of survival, I suppose I tucked away each individual issue.  I only approached them one by one when absolutely necessary.  If an issue attempted to make it's ugly self known without my consent, I would beat it back into submission.  Yet I still carried it all around with me like a fog, like a mist of heaviness.  

A few nights ago, I arrived home from another day of singing.  Being surrounded by so many genuine people with hearts poised and ready to offer God nothing but gratitude had left me in the ambiance of the Spirit.  As I walked onto my porch, I just happened to glance out over my front yard.  I took a seat on the porch swing and just sat there, watching the moment unfold before me.  I had no control of anything.  I had no say in the way the sun was sinking below the treetops, or the way the rain was softly covering everything my eye could see, or the way my driveway connected with the main road and rose to meet the security light.  It was one thing I didn't have to wrap my mind around, one thing I didn't have to understand or comprehend or fix.  It simply was the way it was and that was nice.

I took everything in.  This simple moment, one that could happen any day of the week, seemed too good to be true to me.  And in this moment, it didn't matter what kind of life decisions I needed to make or what insecurities plagued me or what fears gripped my heart concerning those I loved and held dear.  It was like I was in a bubble, in an atmosphere, and God was saying, "It's alright.  I'm still here.  And as long as I'm here, everything works out."

Sometimes we have so much weighing on our minds.  Some things don't deserve the air time we give them while others deserve much more consideration than we allow.  But regardless of what thoughts we allow to rein in our minds, sometimes, even as Christians, we need to be reminded that God is in control.  So know that no matter what is coming against you, no matter how many things battle for your attention daily, there is one thing that remains true and steady: as long as God is here, everything works out.  As long as you allow God to be near, everything is fine.  Just take His hand, trust in His process, and look towards the incredible finish He has awaiting. 

"Every chapter that we've been through has taught me to rely on You.  Jesus, teach me that again." - Jason Gray.