The JOY Challenge: Day 27 - Cracks in Time

I'm deliberately looking for joy for forty days. To start from day one click here.

I am naturally a busy person. I would like to be one of those peaceful, wistful types who know how to take life in stride. But instead I tend to speed through it, focused and fast.

As a child, I remember setting a goal to ride my bike around the block 100 times. No one told me to do this. I simply did it...wheels whirring beneath me, wind in my air, feeling happy and tired all at once.

I haven't changed that much.

After finishing grad school, publishing a book, and helping launch a new site, people keep telling me, "Holley, it's time for you to take a break. Just relax."

I try. Good grief, I try. (And, yes, I realize there's something really ironic about trying THAT HARD to relax.)

It feels as if there are cracks in my schedule. And I'm insistent on plugging them. I fear my life will get a leak if I have five minutes of nothing.

But lately, I've started letting some of those cracks in time stay.

And I've discovered something.

Come close, I'll whisper it to you...

Those aren't cracks; they're doors.

They let in the love of my husband when we sit on our porch together on a cool fall evening. They allow the laughter of friends to slip into my life more often. They enable me to reach out and reconnect with family.

And in all those moments comes the One who matters most.

When I shut the door to the open spaces of my life I leave no room for Him to enter.

It's a truth I struggle with every single day.

You will fill me with joy in Your presence. Psalm 16:11

Lord, may we see the cracks in our schedules as opportunities for you to come into our lives. May the doors of our hearts be open to you. Draw us to you in the stillness and whisper, "I have come. I am here. I am enough." Amen. 

Would you like to join me in the Joy challenge? Today please share if you ever struggle with being too busy (a joy stealer) and what helps. I'm having random giveaways for people who comment or subscribe during the forty days. And you never know when it could be you...  

The Joy Challenge: Day 26 - The Chair

I'm deliberately finding joy for forty days. To start from day one, click here.

 

The chair once sat in the living room of my grandparents. It's covered in the fabric above, shaped like a horseshoe, low to the ground, with three stout legs. As children, my brother and I took turns spinning in it until we tumbled, dizzy, to the ground.

The chair quietly disappeared and I didn't think much of it until the last time I visited my grandfather. And there, in the garage, it sat. I asked about it and learned he planned to put it in a garage sale.

I protested and my parents hauled it all the way from Texas to my home the next time they came to see me (my grandpa still says I owe him $40 with a twinkle in his eyes).

Now it sits in the corner of our bedroom. It's the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning. I look at it and I think of childhood, family, the places my heart calls home no matter where I am.  

My Grandpa says the chair is from the sixties or so and that he and my grandma bought it from a couple at their church. It's seen a lot of life, that chair.

Lately I've been curling up in it for a few moments before I go to work. I pray, quietly, and run my fingers along the fabric.

I think about how everything feels so urgent to us. And then I think about how time smooths things out and living faithfully in little ways adds up to a lot when it's all said and done.

Sometimes I close my eyes and feel the arms of the chair around me. Words of those who have sat there too run through my mind. I remember again there is time—enough for living, loving, fulfilling God's purposes.

Then peace settles somewhere deep inside, joy calls my name and I'm ready to face the day...ready to stand.  

 

Would you like to join me in the Joy challenge? Today just share a place where you feel joy. I'm have random giveaways for people who comment or subscribe during the forty days I write about joy. And you never know when it could be you...  

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