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I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God!She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

Leaving The Race
“And so, I have left my everyday world. Is this what it’s like to be a bird? Is this the freedom in flight they feel, guided only by some inner directive with no white lines on the highway to cross—no heavenly highway they must follow? They seem to be led by instinct, desire, and perpetual hunger. Free! They’re free and freewheeling, the birds. Far above the world of man, woman, and child, they follow their own imbedded compass. And so will I.”
Journal of a Retreat
Linda Andersen

At the point of leaving for a spiritual retreat of any length, my work is never, completely done. I am a woman. And, in fact, it never will be, because a woman‟s work is not. It’s ongoing. It’s the very reason I need to walk away. It’s why personal retreat is so awfully necessary.
To wait until there is time, is to slam the door forever on the clamoring needs of the soul to come out and play. It is to forsake the reassembling of our very selves. It is to say we are not in need of sitting quietly with what is true of our lives.

Personal, spiritual retreat needs to become part of a woman’s life work if she is not to intentionally self destruct. As I write, a young mother is spending 6 hours alone in my home for her monthly retreat here. Early on, this wise, young woman knew she would need to incorporate quiet times away if she was to become a fruitful wife and mother. Her island of quiet sustains and carries her spirit for the changing of the diapers and other demands she faces daily. She gains perspective instead of drowning in the duties of a woman’s world. On retreat, her smile returns and worry lines recede. Her heart is mended and enthusiasm is rekindled. “I can’t do without it” she affirms in her note left at the end of the day.

False guilt will make a play for attention when we set aside quiet personal hours. To do lists will scamper through our thoughts in wild abandon. “Musts” and “oughts” will shout. “Buts” will intrude. “Can’ts” will multiply. They always will. And so, we will find a place and we will go anyway. We will wonder how to explain it to curious others, and eventually learn we don‟t need to. We only need to attend to our souls.

Every station in life has its’down time. Even slaves stopped for lunch. Yet with all our freedoms, we still tend to tie our lives in knots. And we claim we can’t change. Why not take a second look. Why not begin by taking a bundle of enticing hours simply to look at your life with God. Examined from a distance, it becomes easier to see where some addition, some subtraction, and some division could greatly enhance life.

This winter, I added a soulful early morning hour to my day and wonder now how I could have lived without it. Oh yes, there was the usual time spent in the Bible and prayer, but now it was time for communing and contemplation and adoration. God had moved me here—called me to more. At first it was strange, then glorious, then surprising as I let go of my agenda and simply “sat” with Christ. Each life is different, yet all lives can be massaged into a better shape somewhere if we look hard enough.

I used to wake up, get up, make up, and then get a hurried breakfast for my husband and I before going to my Quiet Room for devotions. Now, I get up an hour before my husband, light candles in the Quiet Room, often put on soft music, make coffee, and commence sitting with the Lord. First thing! All is calm. All is right. My heart isn’t racing to begin “my work” because this is my finest hour.

Phones are turned off during this time of times. Candlelight flickers off the ceiling and ricochets off the walls in a fantastic dance of worship. When I’m ready, I journal at my small, white desk, and move to reading the Bible and talking with God. The added hour is a silky-soft darkness pillowing my soul and feeding me for the day to come. It‟s a daily and very present Sabbath.
Six to eight hours a week we meet, God and I. And it’s irresistible and sweet and necessary. It will see me through until I can spend a group of hours in one sitting (which I do every month or two). It is my feeding station and my Sabbath space. It is where I find and am found. I make the time because I can, and not because I must.

Private retreat (a day alone with God) is not another “must do”—another item in a list of oughts for Christian living. It’s a privilege and a joy and a want-to time we learn to look forward to with the eagerness of a thirsty child at a soda fountain.

Leaving the race is really not an option given to a privileged few, but the birthright of every child of God. The Holy Spirit continually draws us to fellowship with the Father, and we ignore it to our detriment. Mighty Counselor! He covers us with His wings and leans down to listen. We are heard and we are cherished.

Since my children were young, I have found places and made extended times to be alone with God. My life changed, the children grew, and I found new times and new places. Never a part of a church program, never recommended by anyone, I nevertheless felt a call from God Himself to “meet me in the garden”. And Lamb of God, I came!

For over 8 years, my home has been open to women for day retreats, and they, too, have come. Oh, they have come! And they have rested and they have wrestled. With issues big and small they have wrestled. And they have won. And God has grown large and able in their spirits. And they have refurnished the empty rooms in their lives. They have left their own races and found it to be a very good thing and a right thing. And husbands watch in wonder and envy, and children smile at mother’s soft, new voice.

Not to leave our race is a self-inflicted wound on the spiritual life. For life will continue to grate away at our inner selves until the only thing visible is a raw and festering wound of what might have been. We may say we can’t, but it usually means we won’t. For many reasons, we won’t.
Not to leave the race on a regular basis is to put our souls at risk and our lives in jeopardy. If we as Christians are to follow Christ with our whole selves, we will need to keep ourselves from fragmenting.

We can put ourselves on the calendar, and, in fact, we must put the care of our souls first if we are to have anything to give to others. In January each year, I lay out a year’s worth of retreat times for myself. It is my work. Once a month or so I go. If my life was lived out in a high stress zone, I would take even more time. The simple fact is, I need the Lord. Every moment of every day I need Him. In season and out of season, He is my life and my breath. He fills my every longing and keeps me singing as I go.

And Christ says, “Come”. “Come away.” “Be still and know that I am God.” “And you shall find me if you seek me with all your heart.” And I say, “Lord, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!” “Where can I go to meet with you?”

“He leads me beside the still waters.” “He restores my soul.”

It doesn’t get any better.

You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

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I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God!She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

A Time to Listen

“Surely this day is a greeting and a warm “Hello” from God, one pleasure at a time. So I gladly leave the world of stoplights and unhappy newspapers and traffic jams and even carefully planned strategies and careworn strategists. For me, and for now, I must listen. And I think for all time I must listen to God. For if I am to be true to myself, and true to the Lord who made me, I must.”
– “Journal Of A Retreat”
Linda Andersen

Because prayer, at its’ core, is conversation , and conversation involves active listening, a quiet retreat of one’s own involves listening for God. The concept may sound too large to encompass, or too broad to comprehend. But the welcome news is this: it is not.
In conversation with a friend, we pause to listen for the heart of the other, and we respond. We clear a path through our words in order to honor the words of another. We intentionally put our words on hold so we can hear the voice of someone else. If the other person is a recent acquaintance, we pause out of good manners as well as curiosity because we’re getting to know each other. If the person is a lover, we pause deliberately and lovingly out of adoration for the words of the beloved. We yearn for every word we hear, and it falls like soft rain on our hearts, wooing us to even deeper places of love.

In listening for God’s voice, we are both new acquaintances and familiar lovers. Because we will never plumb the depths of who God fully is, we come as novices each time we come to pray. And because some of us have known him for years, we come as familiar lovers.

When we pray, we bring ourselves, as we are, but not as we will become, into His presence. And there, we receive all of who God is for all of who we are. It is a meeting and a mystery like no other: humanity enfolded in eternity. God the Father listens for the footfall of “me”! The hand of Abba, Daddy, God stretches long and low toward my hand and I reach to grasp His. Holy communion! Prayer, then, is communion.

To listen to God and for God invites a profound intimacy with the Almighty. With our hearts we listen in wordless wonder for the voice of our Good Shepherd. And we know His voice, and He knows our name. It is to open ourselves to the imprint of God’s words on our heart. As we listen through reading the Bible, the words leave soundless impressions on our soul. As we listen in quiet meditation, nature itself may speak. A song may rise, or a cry of praise. As we open our noisy souls, we may cry. As we quiet ourselves, we open the door to the room of the spirit and find Christ waiting inside and perfectly at home.

On a spiritual retreat of many hours we receive the gift of time to fully commune with God. We make way for discernment. We open space inside to ponder and to wonder. My own experience has shown me that time to listen and reflect is an all-important part of retreating. Far from the world of back-to-back-and-busy, retreat hours let our relationship with God unfold softly and with measured ease, like the opening of a rose. Time breeds mindfulness, and reflection breeds wisdom. Beholding and worshipping lead to quietness and receptivity before the One who was, who is, and who is to come.

On retreat we find ourselves stilled and quieted and able to hear the voice of God whispering low against our spirits. Because we live and move and have our being in a ringing, buzzing, clattering world, hours of quiet seem to me a very necessary goodness to restore us to balance and sanity.

Because we perpetually hear the voice of magazines, newspapers, television, videos, movies, books, and even sermons, we are more desperate than we know to hear the voice of truth from the one who is the way, and the truth. When we listen to God, we ascribe honor and glory to Him. And in the doing, we become wiser with a wisdom not of this world. His thoughts become our thoughts and his desires becomes ours.

When we listen and respond to God, we somehow stand in mute agreement with him that knows best. We give his words precedence over ours. Listening is an act of worship and brings our souls from virtual exile to utmost intimacy.

Usually when we enter retreat times, we are harried and pressed and overfull of ourselves and jam-packed with life and with our own words and agendas. In prayer, we exhale, bit by bit, like a child after school, until we reach a point of emptiness. Then, we are ready to listen. Then we can receive quietness and sit with zippered mouths at the foot of the cross and listen. We are then empty enough to receive his fullness. We hear a sweet voice saying, “Make me your choice” and we enter the haven of rest.

Copies of this book can be purchased at $15 each by contacting Linda Andersen at lindasbox@btc-bci.com. Payable by check. Price includes postage.

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

{ 0 comments }

I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God!

She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

A TIME TO PRAY

“The sun is a brightness and a cheer and an invitation to joy. And should I not respond to such an invitation—to me, whose soul is so prone to oughtness and muchness and manyness? To act as if such a day had not happened would be the tragedy. The “ought” on a day like today changes somehow from producing to praying—from making to responding—from talking to being attentive—from busyness to abiding.”
Journal Of A Retreat
Linda Andersen

And what is prayer if it isn’t scooting over close to God and opening our deepest thoughts to the one who made us and who cares? What is it but honest reporting of our longings and sharing of our needs. Again, what is prayer if not a meeting, a heart-to-heart conversing with our God whose greatest delight is “couch time” with us?

Surely prayer is more than requests. Surely it is a full-orbed exchange between the creator and the created where spirited conversational exhange occurs. And most surely, it is more than a tattered list of sullen complaints and a litancy of sorrows. Conversation is exchange. You talk. He talks. Through the scripture and through nature and through the still, small voice, and sometimes through dreams. Now loud, now soft. Now through pain. His spirit communes with ours in ongoing engagement with our messy souls.

In Soul Time God’s voice becomes louder—easier to hear, and more clear. With most of the “stuff” of our life scuttled for a time, we lean toward heaven with an ear to hearing from God and are seldom disappointed in the One who invites us to “Draw near to me and I will draw near unto you.”

Even a walk, even a drive: any cutaway time can open our hearts to hearing better. Retreat can be long, but it can also be short. God will insert Himself into the envelope of time we have to offer.

On a whole day away, there is time to stretch out our souls before God without a stopwatch or alarm clock. Any room becomes holy ground. Any place becomes a Tent Of Meeting.

It’s useful, on day retreats, to write out all of our concerns, questions, quandaries. It’s good to talk each one over with God in detail. The result of this “protracted” conversation we call prayer is clarity and often new direction and guidance, as well as renewed zest for moving forward.

With most of us, life’s big and little quandaries pile up haphazardly against the retaining walls of our lives and we seldom take the time to take them out of hiding and expose them to the blinding light of God’s intelligence and wisdom. During soul time, when our souls come out to pray, a kind of celestial magic happens. Our prayers set in motion a panoply of events we would never dare ask or even dream. Our load becomes lighter because it is shared. Our eyesight is sharpened and we begin to “see” farther and better. Our closed fists are pried open by the love of God, and possessions and positions are held more loosely. Hopeless situations are recolored by God’s rainbow of promises. “All things work together for the good.” “I will come again.” “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “I have come that you might have life.” As we pray, insight is sharpened because we pull back and see the larger picture of life together with God. Attitudes and opinions are overhauled and remodeled and whittled away as we pray.

The Humpty Dumpty of our spirits is turned right-side up in prayer, and problems become prime targets for spirited intercession and opportunities for strengthening the muscles of our faith.

Soul time also makes way for the quiet communing of our hearts with God’s in which no words are spoken. Contemplation happens if we turn loose of our prayer agendas. It becomes a space where silent communion is received, much like that which occurs as a husband and wife ride in a car for hours in unspoken but sweet communion. Sometimes no words are needed in order to fellowship. It’s good just to be together. Just abiding in the moment. And in the very abiding comes a peace that passes understanding as we learn to become attuned to the Spirit of God.

All of this praying, talking, communing, does finally come to rest in a most relaxing place. We have exhaled our thoughts. We have dared to take out our dreams and dust them off. We have given away our worries. We have acknowledged our wishes. We have lamented our complaints. And now they are His. And it is very good.

Like a child running to its’ mother, we have told all the news of our days and been heard and attended to. Like a child, we have talked until the words ran out and we are done.

Oh the grace of a place of quietness—a secret garden to meet with the Master.
The joy of partnering with paradise! The surprise of touching a hand and finding it Gods’! We have stepped on shore, and found it heaven.

Copies of this book can be purchased at $15 each by contacting Linda Andersen at lindasbox@btc-bci.com. Payable by check. Price includes postage.

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

{ 0 comments }

I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

A Time To Become

“Lord, speak with me. I want to hear your voice in the day—in the sights, sounds, the people I see. Help me see you in their eyes. Lamb of God, I come to become. My cup is running low and unless you fill me, I’m empty. Take my cup, then, and quench my thirst. Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.”
Journal Of A Retreat
Linda Andersen

Transformation of the spirit, in great part, occurs in utmost private—inside the cave of our deepest selves. Christ-likeness is formed in the “us” times no one sees, as we think our thoughts, make our decisions, chart our paths. It’s an “inside job”, performed by the Holy Spirit of the living God in cooperation with us as we say “yes” to His working. It is the silent child birthed in quietness.

So few of us make room for Christ to birth himself in us. We find it easier to attend to outer matters like church, devotions, Christian service, Bible studies, even witnessing for Christ. But all these good things are mere manifestations of the desires of a transformed heart, and easily become empty husks of performance without the waterfall of life from God to back them up. There must be a balance between doing for Christ, and becoming like Him. Oh, to be like Him!

Performance draws from our bank of inner resources which must be refueled regularly or we become stale offerings and empty gas tanks asking “Where do I go to quit?” We have run out of rope—of spiritual lifeline to replenish us at our source.

Most of us seem to know what’s expected of us in the way of serving God, and do it well. Some of us discover and will admit to an emptiness in the midst of service and thrash around to understand what could be wrong. A few, are learning to turn to God alone for regular, extended hours of quietness to recharge the inner spirit and open the choked pathway to their heart.

Extended times alone with God—30 min, half days, a weekend. They give God a chance to move up close and personal. These times allow Him to speak and give us time to listen. They move aside the extra furniture in our hearts, and make a clearing where two can become one and soul time can occur. Quiet hours alone with God open space in our souls where lasting transformation can occur as we realize, we surrender, we repent, we change course, we listen. Most of the time we don’t leave time for anything much to happen permanently in our hearts. It’s too easy to skim across the top of the page and call it good.

But God. But Christ. But a savior who stakes a cross-shaped claim on our lives and stands eternally at attention looking for an invitation to intimacy with our hearts. He first loved us, and loves us still and will continue always to pursue our hearts before, during, and after salvation. Salvation is only our beginning—the first lap of a long race. Salvation is beyond us and yet exactly what we long to believe. At the same time, we (all of us) tend to keep running faster and faster rather than brake for love or slow down for joy. This need not be.

If spiritual transformation occurs as we meet God and gladly allow Him to form our whole selves, can’t we choose to create stop and slow signs in our lives and devise delightful ways and means to spend quality time in reflective silence and prayer? The very desire for quietness is a call from Christ himself and an honor and a grand goodness that He hasn’t forgotten us. Deep calls to deep. Love seeks out the beloved. And beloved we are, and beloved we will be.

It takes quietness to become like Christ. It takes couch time and a date day or days with the lover of our souls to know Him well and to become more like Him. In quietness we see Him as He is, and it is glory.

Quietness is a soft highway to the heart of God—a comfortable place where we can go beyond “How are you” to “This is how I am.” It’s a birthing place for love to come to full fruit in our lives as He speaks through His word or through the still small voice. Quietness is a becoming place where our spirits more freely knit with God’s, and where we move steadily forward as Christ is formed in us.

Becoming is the active process of spiritual change which occurs when we place ourselves before God, palms up, eager to receive whatever He longs to give. It is a pleasure and a grace and a joy and a gift. Becoming is not something we do, but a spiritual forming that happens when we’re not looking. It’s a work of God whose part it is to form us even as it is our part to present ourselves for formation. “A human-divine cooperative” some call it. We come. He acts. We offer. He takes. We repent. He forgives. Oh Lamb of God we come, to become.

Copies of this book can be purchased at $15 each by contacting Linda Andersen at lindasbox@btc-bci.com. Payable by check. Price includes postage.

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

{ 0 comments }

I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

A Time To Sit With What Is

“The happiness inherent in this day is an irresistible pull on my soul. The colors everywhere transport me far, far away from the road ahead: the cobalt blues, the searing reds, the mysterious blacks and pristeen whites, the sun-sparked greens. Somehow, to me, and to my rejoicing soul, this prism of colors reflect the hallway of heaven.”
-“Journal Of A Retreat”
Linda Andersen

Quiet time with God, wherever and however it occurs, allows the spirit freedom to roam, unencumbered and unchained—wandering among possibilites and probabilities as if through a rainbowed field of wild flowers—each so beautiful and all begging to be admired, plucked, and brought home. Glory in a vase!

In times of aloneness, surprises have a chance to ribbon through our minds and stop momentarily for consideration or admiration or reflection. Deadening duty and monotony for a time are intentionally put aside for the pleasure and necessity of allowing oneself freedom not to think or plan or worry or devise or even to pray. In solitude we simply are. And we find nourishment in simply being quiet and still—of floating on gossamer joys of the soul at rest.

The worrisome clutter of our mortal minds begins to clear, we are taken over by a happier, freer, more honest spirit which slips out of hiding and beckons. Without trying, we begin to rest into this new space and explore the inexpressible stillness of doing nothing in particular.

After a time, we find ourselves in a receptive mood and our tight fists slacken as trust and rest from the Lord gently prys them open so He can hold our hands—so He can bend low enough to hear the shy whispers of our pain and wipe the salted tears with nail-scarred hands. He moves close enough to simply look us in the face and love us with His eyes.

In quiet moments, it becomes enough to be with the Lord and still our incessant chatter. And it becomes a relief to abide quietly in his presence where we are already known and where no explanations are needed. This is the heart of joy—the bright highway of the heart we’re always seeking but seldom find.

During soul time of this nature, silence mercifully blankets our anxious queries and becomes a medicinal elixir by itself. Alone. Just silence. Letting go. Unfolding ourselves into the limitless, timeless, loving Spirit of Abba who yearns after us even in the contorted face of our unlovliness.

Silence is the birthing room of creativity as well. It’s the solemn cavern of our emptiness where we can see down the long staircase of our minds to the very bottom. Silence is a place where we can allow our truest selves to be unveiled—an incubator for all the tiny, unformed desires we seldom admit, see, or live out. Silence is the lining of the womb of time nourishing the creative fetus of our unformed thoughts, taking them from the storage room of dreams out into the sunlight of form and substance and possibility.

Quiet hours allow us to approach the essence of our selves and sit with what is true of us and our lives. It lets us leave the time more honest, more free, and more excited about possibilities God may be birthing in us. We come away serenely humbled by having looked at our flawed selves mirrored in the accepting eyes of Christ.

In alone times with God, we’re energized and renewed and forgiven and filled with an eagerness gestated only in the white-washed vortex of silence. We are known through and through by Him who loves—by Him who walks day and night beside us and in us and around us. The very glimpse we’ve gotten of our unworthiness has only enhanced the union of love between us and our Lord.

We enter quietness “without makeup” and leave the same, yet not exactly as we came, because we’ve been warmed in our deepest parts and found by God and transformed ever so gently. We have discovered the luminous peace and power that comes from intimacy with the God who whispers His love in every quiet breeze and shouts it inside every roaring thunder clap.

Solitude itself is a “blue highway”—a road less traveled. But for those who choose, it becomes a fruitful pathway to peace and to God. Once experienced, the friend of God cannot help but return again and again. For the ways of life are not easy, and our daily roads too often are impassable without an experienced guide.

The crossroads of silence and solitude lead the same place. The inner sanctuary of the very heart of God. There is the safest of havens, where we can take out what is true of us and our life and talk it out. We unfold not what should be or ought to be, but what truly “is”. Soul time allows us to look truth in the eye and come to terms with it. It enables us to embrace what we can’t change and give the whole thing to God.

Quietness mirrors truth back to us. The way things really, really are. It gives us space and time to process and understand and accept and change and adjust. Instead of running past our lives, we give due respect to events by reflecting on them and praying over them. We stop to honor and define the “now” moments of our lives, and live them out fully instead of running to “the next thing”.

Set-apart solitude is a sweet drift of hours (or moments) to listen to and absorb life as it happens so we don’t miss the important stuff. Even so, “sit”. Even so, “come”. Even so, “listen”, for the soul is on the way to being refined.

-Linda Andersen
Friend of Jesus’

Copies of this book can be purchased at $15 each by contacting Linda Andersen at lindasbox@btc-bci.com. Payable by check. Price includes postage.

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

{ 0 comments }

I am thrilled announce that we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen every Tuesday here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.

A Time To Be

I sat in the meeting and listened to three women discuss how utterly busy they were. I sensed a deep longing to have time to “be” instead of “do”. Doing, according to them, took up 100% of their time. But being so productive had cost them dearly in personal peace and had left anxiety as the baby on their doorsteps. These women represented the whole of a society which worships at the altar of doing and has little patience for taking time to “be”.

Most of the days of our lives are filled with expectations, duties, responsibilities, and necessary chores. Martha work, I call it. Not bad, yet not all there is—not the final word on how life is to be lived. Consider the pithy saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. The wisdom hiding behind this saying could be stated this way: to work always and only, to the exclusion of extended soul time, makes anyone a dull-tired, soul-worn person.

We women, as a rule, have heard and have succumbed to the calls on us to pour ourselves out without refueling. And it has not worked. Not nearly well enough. So many, if asked, would have to admit there is a gnawing emptiness yet unfilled. We get used to things as they are. We move locomotive-like through our days making checks on our to-do lists, and convince ourselves it is enough. Tasks are what it’s all about. Tasks completed are easy ways to prove our worth to ourselves and to those around us. We are chided by our own selves when we fall behind, and pour on the coal, full-steam ahead to produce even more. More often than not, however, the mentality of “do” becomes a slave driver, insisting life is comprised only of work completed.

Although many believers spend daily time in the scripture and prayer, even this is not enough. It’s too easy to check it off as a task completed without having truly met God in the crevices of our hearts. I have found the daily quiet time to be crucial to spiritual life, and yet still not enough. The regular tryst with God simply brings a yearning for more of Him, for more of me.

The daily time alone with God is good, and is vital for a well-nourished soul, yet more is called for if we are to become deeply acquainted with the lover of our souls. Sequestered deep in the womb of silence and solitude, we find truths emerging: hidden truths that have simply languished looking for a place to go—trapped by noise and busyness. Alone, we drop our pretenses and social posturing, and relax into simply being who we truly are: naked souls before God. Just as we are, we unfold desires and unload concerns and enter the Holy of Holies, and let our souls catch holy fire as we behold the Lamb.

In quietness, surprising emotions, thoughts, opinions and feelings rise from inside us, and move through. There is time to catch each one, and lift it to the Savior and discover what is true and what is false. Sifting and shifting take place as we unleash and unburden and unmask our truest selves before the holy. We find ourselves sorting the good from the bad with more clarity and discernment because there is time.

When we allow ourselves time to fully “be”, we allow what’s truest about us to emerge. It is there. We don’t need to strain to find it, we merely become conduits for truth to emerge. Are we malnourished spiritually? Overfed physically? The quietness will make room for truth. And the truth will set us free: over and over again.

When truth does emerge, we can carry that truth to the cross and talk it over with the Master. We can let it rest in His capable hands and heart. And we can listen—truly listen for insight and leading and wisdom.

All of this is work. It’s soul work of the most penetrating, life-changing kind. We’re “doing life” with the giver of life who longs to walk so close beside us, we hear His breath and see His footprints.

Making time to “be” is surely the most crucial item on our list of things to do. January 1, each year, is the time I choose to put aside a day a month for quietness and a particular time alone. For me, this feels like a minimum, and I live a stress-free life, for the most part. Lives more harried will need more. It remains for each one of us to admit the need, and portion to ourselves accordingly if we are not to shrivel and fade into a gray shadow of what God wants us to be.

Quiet time alone with God is a fountain of delights to those who dare to care about their spirits as much as their bodies. It has been rightly said that who we truly are is revealed best when we’re alone. There, in the garden of God, we stand unclothed and unashamed in our spirits. He who has been calling us comes near, and walks and talks with us. Through scripture, nature, the still, small voice, He comes. Through silence, His voice can at last be heard if we will make room for it.

The call to “come away”is always pressing on our souls. Underneath layers of doing, it is a voice of lament—God wooing our souls gently but persuasively simply because He loves us. Just as we are, He so loves us. Just as we are, we press ourselves against the door of heaven only to find it unlocked and half open! Jesus! Joy of our desiring! We come.

Spiritual retreat: soul time pillowed on the lap of God and anchored in the belief that care of the soul is truly a necessary goodness. And God said, “It is good.”

Posted in: Mom's Bible Bite

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