Please hold me

I did something very out of character Saturday.

 I spent more time not doing homework than I did inside with my books. I have a friend who decided to "kidnap" me. All I grabbed were my tennis shoes, phone and ID(both of which ultimately got left in the car), and off we went. We ended up at Caddo Lake, where we spent a few hours walking, talking, canoeing, playing on a swing set, and just existing. It was so peaceful. So....unhurried. I think I could've spent forever just looking at the sun hit the tops of the trees and glint off the water, sometimes talking, sometimes content to sit in silence; to watch. And to listen. It felt very surreal, because I knew as soon as I got back to campus I would hit the ground running again, an idea so unappealing I wanted to cry as we made our way back home. We drug the time out as long as we could, walking and eating ice cream until late at night, when we finally hit the end of the trail and decided it was too late to justify doing anything else. It was one of the best Saturdays I've had in a while.

I've been in a strange mood ever since. There's this small part of me that is bothered by the contrast that arises at the juxtaposition of the life I choose and the life I want. 

Life is so busy. So noisy. So rushed. We're in a hurry to get somewhere all the time. Get a degree. Get a job. Get pay. Get a boyfriend. Get a spouse. Get security. Hurry, run! Before you miss the opportunity, before time runs out and you have to settle for less. What is this concept of settling that I associate with God? Settling. Be happy with what you have. My parents took advantage of this expression often when we were kids. Be thankful, there are people who don't have anything. Translation: eat that soggy peanut butter sandwich and like it! Be happy about it. Because it’s the best you’re going to get. Scale down your expectations. Let joy and fulfillment and peace be relative.

 Does God ask us to settle? To give up our dreams to take a less fulfilling, less wanted road? Does He ask us to learn to be happy with something less than everything He offers us? Far too often, I feel like I have to help God along in not missing opportunities if I want to attain the most that's being set before me. "Don't worry about it God, I will get myself to med school. I'll figure out how to pay it. I'll graduate on time. I'll get the logistics pinned down, I'm working as fast as I can, don't leave me behind." I'm in a hurry, and I amass all of this information on what I should do, how I should do it, when it should happen. We live in this age of information exchange that is lightning fast. Twitter, facebook, texting, etc... speeds everything up, because we are in a hurry. Give me real time info to process so I can spit out a response. Go fast, or get run over. And in this process, in the race to not be left behind, we are leaving an integral part of ourselves in the dirty wake of progress, becoming centers for head knowledge while our hearts are starving. 

Let me be perfectly real and say that I do not know how to remedy this. I do not know how to live in a balance of peace and drive. I do not know how to be sold out and tranquil. I do not know how to live at rest and at the same time intentionally passionate. I don't. But I do know that life was not meant to be lived at breakneck speed, and there is a reason my heart aches to find a quiet stream tucked away in the trees and sit for hours, just listening and watching. There is a reason I long to sit in a open field one night and just experience the stars blanketed in the heavens. Something calls me within the tranquility, the quiet, the stillness, something that is getting suffocated and left behind in the polluted, noisy, hurried life I so often choose to lead. 

Maybe it's Him. Maybe it's why that call breaks my heart. A call to come away and be quiet. To be still. To stop running. A call to rest in the arms of Jesus, the One Who decided my heart was worth loving when no one else did. In my sprint to make sure I don't miss out on the peace and rest that is waiting for me after I attain my goals, I am ignoring the only source of what I am seeking in the first place. 

Here's to learning to be still. To be held. To stop running like mad. To being quiet. 

Here's to letting my heart catch up with my head.