God is God as He always Is

On gratitude, dancing, and satisfaction for the weary soul

Jeremiah 31:25   For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.

Spring showed up, as usual, unannounced. One dark and grey morning, I was stoking a hot burning wood fire in the kitchen; the next day, I flung open the slider doors for sunlit breezes full of birdsong. I’m not sure I was ready to stop wintering, but the first full day of sunshine was an energetic stirring, a calling to come out, come out, wherever you are.

And outside I stepped, and have hardly returned indoors. My email, for example, is an avalanche of neglect, and I’m sorely tempted to just delete that address and see what really happens (will the robins go away? will the cedar branches stop waving in puffs of wind?). I’ve written many, many starts of essays in my head, usually when I’m strolling around the property noticing all of the purple dead nettle or chickweed and promising to come back “later” to harvest and enjoy, but by the time I’m reluctantly drawn back inside for the evening, whiffs of words and emotions and threads of scripture have withdrawn and I am content to think of nothing in particular to say in the moment at all. I imagine, if you and I were in the same room with one another, we might have our cups of tea then, and consider an air of silent and happy contentment between us.

My soul had indeed been worn of wintering, and it actually wasn’t the restful sort whatsoever. My pessimistic mental state (certainly stoked by my own sinful nature, but also by social and mainstream media) dragged my physical pre-menopausal body deep into a posture of persistent slumping and a mental fatigue beyond all motivating.

But, one slumpy and slow morning, I read Jeremiah 31:25. I audibly sighed and wondered and asked, “Lord, haven’t you satisfied MY weary soul?”

Naturally, the question is ridiculous. I almost laughed out loud at my foolishness.

It is not God’s faulting if I have been feeding my mind with loops of negativity and fearmongering. What a word that is, fear mongering. What is a monger, and whatever it is, why should I divert my eyes from the Savior to purchase anxiety and unease? My Shepherd bids me to rest in His pastures and to eat at His table, and there I go (again! I feel ya, Paul! Romans 7) hunting after broken cisterns in deserts full of dried bones. When. Will. I. Learn.

I honed in and listed from the chapter my satisfactions from the goodness of the Lord, and here is how I began my list, written in large font with a bright orange marker in the margins of my Bible:

grace

rest

communion

joy

planting vines

harvest

eat

gladness

write and praise

gathering and gathered

led

sure

shepherded

redeemed

ransomed

song

wheat

wine

oil

meat

rejoicing

In other words, my cup overflows with reasons to be thankful. My lack of genuine gratitude for even the air I get to breathe on a daily basis was suffocating me, so I needed a real spring with a renewed state of gratefulness. Being thankful, after all, is the key way to LET the peace of God rule in our hearts (Col 3:15), and I hardly wanted to be counted in the company of unthankful people highlighted in 2 Timothy (chapter 3), in these last days.

I began by thanking the Holy Spirit for His conviction! Faithful, indeed, are the wounds of a Friend (Pro 27:6), and especially from the One who sticks closer than a brother (Pro 18:24). Friend, don’t hide from conviction! He will bind your wounds and raise your humble self up (Ps 147:3, James 4:10).

Since this time of reflection and repentance, I started opening my bedroom windows in the morning with a flourish (for real, like I was tearing open a present!) and started listening to the awakening birds: robins, wrens, towhee, a thrush or two. My Jesus created those bird songs and they were and are such a joy to my heart! I had forgotten that simple pleasure of listening that I had cultivated as a young girl, sitting so silently, cross legged on wide grassy expanses on English summer afternoons, hoping above all hope that some little birdie would alight upon me if I promised to not twitch an eyebrow.

Then, I stopped listening to the news when I was dressing in the morning and began playing happy music instead. Yes, like Pharrell Williams sort of happy. Recently, I lost a dear sister in the Lord, aged 81, who truly was the happiest person I knew, and now when I play my vinyl records or put on a dance workout for myself or the kids I remember how she would blast (yes, blast) all kinds of music in her house and dance, dance, dance. So, I move and dance. And now I have begun to run on the treadmill and do short-but-challenging workouts, too. I find movement multiple times a day and that has truly lifted my mood! In my head, I knew exercise was good for all kinds of mental well being, perhaps even better than therapy and medications, but my heart knew it for certain when I actually started MOVING. Turns out my body appreciates all of the extra oxygen, and I wasn’t getting enough of it. And I hadn’t really been thankful for the body God had given me, either, considering how much for granted I had been taking.

I also stopped following threads or comments or even texts that had no other purpose other than to (supposedly) inform, but had no real practical solution for a homemaker and mother. I actually can’t do anything about what politician is doing what or whatever whomever is spraying in the skies or why I pay so much in taxes or at the grocery store when apparently the government can just print all the dollars they want at any time. I became, this spring especially, very solutions minded. If there is a feasible solution that I am able to determine for said problem, I get to work. Otherwise, I leave God’s work and God’s intentions in God’s hands, knowing God is still on the throne laughing at His enemies (Ps 2), and every day He is one day closer to mopping all of this mess up forever. And I pray a lot more for these concerns, now, leaving my prayer chair satisfied, thankful, and unburdened.

Lastly (perhaps not “lastly”, but one more for the road….) I stopped meditating on all of my liabilities and “not good enough’s”, and started listing and elevating my assets, small as they may seem. After all, God created me with the advantages I have, whether it is my two eyeballs that can still see (with modern eyeglasses, praise the Lord!), or my own two legs I can still blessedly stand upon. I don’t care if I can only do ten push ups; at least I did ten today. I don’t care if I can’t afford to fix up the whole house; I took a little pot of chalk paint and renewed the fireplace. I got inspired listening to and learning from people in their seventies and eighties who were laughing, fit, happy, healthy, serving and loving the Lord, and tried to imagine myself at that age and what I would actually advise the younger me, the me of today. I started encouraging myself and reminding myself of God’s promises when the loop of negativity started, and stopped flogging myself. I took responsibility for my own emotions, happiness, and well being. I stopped being triggered. I found even the word “triggered” was triggering, as if I was just waiting for something to offend me or to make me otherwise upset. I discovered that I didn’t actually have to wait for any of that because the world, my flesh, and the devil were always at my own beck and call when I sent out the invitation to my own pity party. So I stopped sending the invites, muted the naysayer in my head, and reminded myself of God’s good purposes in me and in what He allows in my life, renewing my trust in Him to finish the good work that He started and has promised to accomplish.

In other words, I am truly happy to be alive. And that’s where I’ve been lately.

Let’s put down our tea cups and come for a walk with me, friend. Let’s leave the audio buds out of our ears and instead see how many shades of green we can count before we turn home. Let’s do a funny little skip and laugh like the ten year olds we once were. Let’s remind one another of what God has done, is doing, and will do, and encourage one another in our own trials and pilgrimages. The world is as it always has been, but God is God as He always Is, and the birds are still trilling in the trees glorifying and praising Him, so we should, too.