On Stillness

For me, there is a certain kind of beauty that comes in the stillness of the morning.

These days, it seems as if the world around me struggles to wake up every day, like the sleep has clouded its eyes, like it’s a kiddo rubbing her eyes to stay awake.

Or
maybe,

this stillness is less about sleepiness and more about the pause. Maybe it’s the break, the silence that comes before a crescendo. Maybe its the stillness before a rainstorm, the quiet before the thunder. Perhaps these sleepy mornings are the quiet anticipation for what’s to come.

It’s as if the world around me knows that the day ahead will be similar to yesterday and yet unlike any other day before. The ebb and flow of wind and time will move across the grass and through the trees and will pierce our very souls. Movement and chaos will sprint through the air. Noise will scream from our screens and from street corners. Heartache will fall. Laughter will echo. Joy and sorrow and healing and pain and love will breathe in and breathe out, incarnating the spaces around us.

And yet.

And yet before the chaos and the noise and the whirlwind of this world, there is stillness. There is quiet. There are birds chirping, crickets humming. There is rain falling. There are leaves rustling, trees singing. There is peace. Shalom.

My world in this moment is loud. It’s chaotic. It is noise and whirlwind. The normal and ordinary of the life that I  knew for 25 years is gone. In its place are languages I don’t understand, writing I cannot read, stores and roads and cities that are unfamiliar. New people. New home. New currency. New food. New New New. The whirlwind swirls.

But
then
the
morning
comes.

This morning, as the rest of my world back in America fell asleep, the Father and I walked hand-in-hand. My house is quiet. Outside, the birds call to one another. Every so often the street dogs pick a fight. A gentle breeze fills my living room from the fan in the corner.

It is the calm before the storm or maybe the calm in the midst of a storm.

But not all storms are bad.

Some storms are beautiful. They are powerful. They bring life and beauty. They bring green grass and full trees. That is what this storm feels like, the storm that is this season of transition and change, of moving and settling and creating new normals. It’s a storm that’s powerful, windy, a whirlwind to say the least. But it’s a storm that is beautiful, the kind you watch from the porch with friends. It’s the kind you breathe deeply in, just to smell the fresh rain a little more. It’s the kind you can almost see the grass grow a little taller in.

In the midst of these beautiful storms, I find that the Father provides moments of stillness, moments of silence, moments of rest and recovery. He provides moments to breathe deeply in ways that you can’t in the midst of the whirlwind. He does this because He is a good Father.

And so today, in the midst of the storm, God my Father has given me a chance to pause, to pray, to write, to reflect, to breathe deeply. The whirlwind continues and will only continue but

right now
in this moment

the birds chirp,
the wind carries the trees,
a stream of rain soaks the ground,
and the Father’s words echo, “Be still, love.”