Yesterday, I wanted to run. Well really, I wanted to stay in bed under the covers all.day.long. All of my projects were completed. The house is as beautified as it will be for a potential buyer. I had just finished telling someone the night before how surprisingly not stressed I have been in this whole process.

That’s because there was so much doing that needed to be done. I didn’t have time to stop and consider what is happening in our lives. I’ll talk more about that on the family blog tomorrow, but what I want to tell you is that I kept saying to God yesterday morning, “I just need a break. I need to get away. When can I just be alone with my thoughts to process what is happening?”

And, lovingly, He simply said, “Stay.” I remember reading this in Rebekah Lyons book, Freefall to Fly. She was freaking out and felt like she was falling hard and fast toward a painful end. She wanted to run. God said to stay.

I think that too often I forget what it is to stay in the mess, in the hurt, in the fear, in the weary – so that I may learn to lean harder into Jesus. I just want it all to go away. I feel like if I can only have a break I will be better equipped to handle what is before me. Maybe, though, what I really need, what my family needs, is to learn what it is to let God teach me while I live fully in this moment – sometimes in the moment where all I can hear is the wind whipping past my ears as I fall hard and fast into the unknown.

So, I asked Him to meet me where I was yesterday. I asked Him to help me remember that I don’t have to go anywhere to know His relief. I had lunch with the sweetest toddler around.

We ate chicken and waffles and made silly faces. We napped together and I marveled and just how much I didn’t know SHE knows. We colored with chalk and we picked up a big sister. I watched as her freckles popped against her sun-kissed skin, as she colored a pretty impressive rainbow on the baking hot concrete, as she showed me that she’s my little girl big way too fast.
We all watched Barney together. I read magazines while the girls played at my feet and interrupted me with requests to read Where’s Spot one more time. I dreamed a little. Josh and I watched the girls play in the sprinkler as it quenched the thirst of our parched veggie garden. We ate leftovers. I embraced the not having to run and do and prepare. I stayed. And it turns out, eyes that see were easier to come by because of it.

Is staying hard for you, too?