Two years ago life began settling in a way it hadn’t before since our family moved to the Bay Area in 2008. After renting for eight years, God opened up a miraculous door to buy a house. I was slow to jump on board.
Putting down roots didn’t appealed to me much at all. I liked change, I liked moving around, I liked options. I prided myself on being flexible and not getting stuck in one place, phase, or thing very long. While I never seriously entertained leaving the Bay Area (there’s always the temptation to start over on bad days), I liked that we could easily leave if needed. We were debt free in every way, and I kinda wanted to keep it that way. Sometimes our pride gets the best of us, and in this area, I probably crossed the line.
The entire ordeal of buying our house was miraculous. I tell people it’s my “crossing of the Red Sea” kind of miracle. You may be able to explain logically how we were the only (asking price) offer on this (non-fixer upper) house in a market that’s flooded with offers far exceeding asking price, but my only explanation is God. God used the process of buying this house to once again confirm His calling on us to this city, and to remind me He is leading us in the details.
Once we had keys and began moving, my soul let out one big sigh of relief. Relief I didn’t know I needed or longed for. I felt a sense of permanency I’d never felt (that I was afraid of) since entering adulthood. It felt so good.
I noticed God really had changed my heart when I began thinking about and making decisions with future grandchildren in mind. It freaked me out a little (or a lot), but it was strangely comforting. Feeling the responsibility for the future of five kids may have forced my pride to bend.
As we began to settle into new normals, I found myself thinking and dreaming in new ways. New routines have a way of changing our ways of doing things- even those of us who don’t think we are stuck in a rut.
I slowed down a lot. I stopped pushing so hard. I began finding more silence in my day, and our new space allowed me more of it. The more silence I had, the more of it I craved.
I had stumbled into contemplative spiritual practices quite by accident. I didn’t know that’s what it was when I started; I just found some breathing room and got addicted. Along the way, I (accidentally) picked up a couple of books that put language to what I was doing. Wow! Spiritually healthy people actually do this stuff, I thought. Maybe I’m not as weird as I feel.
Around this time Filipe participated in a nine-month Soul Care program where he also studied and practiced some of these disciplines regularly. The combination of what he was learning and what I was reading helped make sense of what I was experiencing in my own time alone. It also helped me understand why I felt such a positive difference and pursued it more in my day.
Stillness, silence, and solitude. It’s the perfect recipe for caring for our soul. For the next few weeks I’m going to share more about these things- why they matter, and why, as Christians, we need them.
The more I’ve practiced these things, the more they have become a necessity in my life, and the more I see in Scripture how God meets us in these places. Can He meet us in the noisy and hurried and chaotic? Maybe. But I have a feeling most of us wouldn’t notice if He tried.
Engaging in contemplative spiritual practices has deepened my faith and intimacy with God in ways I’d never thought of or experienced before. I hope in sharing my journey, you too, may explore these wonderful ways of connecting with God, and that in return, you will experience more of Him.