I used to do this thing with my weekly newsletters, where I’d anchor to a specific theme each week and somehow watch it morph into something I just couldn’t ignore anymore. For the first time, in a long time, I feel like that’s happened again this week.

The theme?

Quiet time. 

Earlier last week, my book club gals and I shared one final in-person patio hang with our Amy before she moved away to Texas. Over the course of the evening, we got into a conversation about how difficult it is – in certain seasons especially – to carve out time just for ourselves. Which then led us into a discussion about how uncomfortable it can be to sit still, or “be bored” as we said. To, literally, declutter you mind and just be with YOU. We swapped a variety of encouragements and practices with one another to try and somehow normalize this idea of being quiet. So when I showed up the very next day to a prayer retreat and saw “Hour of Silence” on the agenda, I shook my head in complete disbelief. Here it was again – this space carved out to be still.

It’s no coincidence that my passion is self care. 

And by my definition, self care is the intentional attention you give yourself amidst your everyday life. We live in a fast-paced, overworked, #hustlehard culture. Self care is hardly our focus, so creating healthy rhythms and paying attention to ourselves from time to time?? Pssssssh! That can seem almost obsolete. The notion of quiet time is so foreign to us, it’s almost rejected.

An hour went by at this retreat and I watched sooo many people come back into the room, just struggling with their last 60 minutes.

Really irked and agitated.

More stressed than they were before.

Just extremely uncomfortable.

The ability to come back into a room and socialize with people, pull their phones out, crack open their laptops, and busy their mind again with notes and interaction? THAT’S what brought them back into a space of comfort. It’s almost what brought the room back to its equilibrium.

I sat amazed.

To see how used to the noise we’ve become. 

We are so distracted – it’s so noisy in our heads – that we don’t know who we are.

We don’t know what brings us joy.

We don’t know what feelings we’re feeling.

We don’t know how to let our souls rest.

God weaved so much within us upon creation – thoughts, gifts, purpose, triggers, emotions, character, likes, dislikes, opinions, sleep patterns. Some of us are so far away from ourselves that we’re actually further from God than we would be if we just allowed any of these markers to guide us to Him. Someone told me last week – in a mesmerized fashion, hand on her chin and all – “how do you know so much about yourself?”

Investment (to a therapist AND of time, in general).

I had to grow comfortable shutting out the noise. Being alone. Finding a few minutes a day to be still.

And in that, I found myself.

As a cherry on top, the group gathered back after their “Hour of Silence” for a time of corporate prayer and the introduction of the verse that would be a banner over our year:

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth

Psalm 46:10

Laughable at this point, right? 

Like okay, God. We get it.

Can I encourage you today, if sitting still seems like an impossible thought right now? 

If you look around and write off this verse based on your circumstances?

Be still in your season. 

“Be still” has ALWAYS implied a need to literally sit still. Hands in your lap. No movement. The urge to just be. You might have a visual of a pin drop-quiet room, or a kid-less morning by the beach. And sure, there’s an element of that. But that’s not always realistic. More often than not, people struggle to be still because of the busyness of their season. Or the busyness of their mind. Or the busyness of their household. It feels like they just can’t take a break.

In the same way I hope to reframe self care, can I ask you to reframe “be still?”

To mean: 

Dwell in this season.

Delight in the things of this season. 

Maybe even delight in the chaos of this season. 

Don’t have your head on a swivel so deeply – craving what once was, or praying for what will one day be – that you miss where God has you right now. 

Be still in it.

Rest in it.

Sit in it.

Soak it all in.

Savor it.

Be still in whatever season you’re in.

Just be right where your feet are.