Lean In, Let Go

The blurred softness of sleep still lingers as I rise from my nap, pour a bowl of cereal, and set myself down at the computer in early evening. Yes, the world is dark outside my window except for the glow of streetlamps and outlined strung lights of buildings. I missed the last of the milky gray light in favor of a nap, but my body was searching for rest and days like today, I listen to what it needs.

I’ve pushed and pulled and prayed my way through the underside of anxiety and long COVID after affects for a year. Getting out of bed to do the day was miraculous. Crippling fatigue and frenzy of thoughts kept me clawing for a way out, yet left me depleted. God gave me manna in the midst, my bread for each day. I was fed and satisfied for the moment.

Looking back to where I was a year ago, I shudder to remember the endless minutes that seemed to be eternity, when I fought to believe I would get better. When I fought to lean into the arms of God when I was afraid His frame was nowhere to be found.

What truth and treasure does He have when I can’t be still but He still asks for all of me?

Breathe. Lean in. Let go.

//What does it look like to receive? To spread my arms in surrender and ask to be filled?

It gets weary waiting for answers to mysteries that aren’t meant to be solved. It gets exhausting, all the effort to make it through the day somedays. But He who gave us rest wants us to come closer, examine what His way of rest entails.

“Come to you, all who are weary, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Is this such a simple offering to receive? To lean in with full weight and let Him revive my burned-out soul?

The winter weeks stretch small signs of longer days of sunlight, that spring will eventually come. I am nowhere near the suffering of mind and body I was a year ago, and for that I am thankful. I feel like I have done hard and brutal work of surviving. Lord, where has my faith been? Why would You not insert the peace I longed for, instead let me hang on every bit of Scripture and call out to You and name every attribute, holding You to Your promises?

How to rest in what You long to give… to receive the strength that comes not by might, but by Your Spirit.

Your Spirit makes a way where no way is found. You bring forth the hope that has buried itself under clods of earth, covered in disappointment, brokenness, pain, and despair. But hope does bloom; it takes a while in the darkness to evolve, remain. //

To receive Your presence, Your healing—this is what is good and holy and right for my soul. For paying attention to my body is also paying attention to my soul, its inner invitation to lay back into the heart of He who knows me well, who holds a small piece of joy before me like a bowl of warm soup, meets my eye, and implores me to take, receive.

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Continuing my attempt at the Five Minute Friday weekly writing challenge. Five minutes to write on the assigned topic. Raw and unedited. (Yikes!) This week’s topic: Recieve.   // symbolizes where five minutes started and/or stopped.