Rhythm of Rest: Take Inventory

“Writing was the only way I knew to process what God might be doing in my life” (27).  Rebekah Lyons penned those words in her book Rhythms of Renewal, but the college-aged version of me lived them out nightly in her dorm.  Life happened, and I desperately tried to keep up and capture it by pouring out into my 25 cent spiral notebooks, usually after midnight at my standard-issued desk lit by my lamp.  My roommate would put in her earplugs and pull a sleep mask over her eyes and climb into her bed, and I would keep writing and writing and writing.  Journal writing had become a part of my bedtime routine around the time I was in seventh grade, but it reached a feverish peak in those late nights in my late teens and early 20s.

All my life I’ve been a writer - from the very first moment I could put letters together as a three year old reader and writer, I took delight in expressing myself in that way.  God created me to write.  I honestly believe that it’s easier to get to know me better through writing than in person, as I’m shy, introverted, and often quiet.  Sometimes I stumble with my spoken words or am left feeling that I didn’t express myself quite accurately.  But when you get me in writing, my soul often spills out through my pencil, pen, or fingers as I type.

Some of my journal entries through those years  are mundane and simply a report of “what I did that day”, but others are chock full of emotions - often conflicting emotions - and trying to sort out what life was all about somehow.  

Rebekah Lyons writes about taking inventory - evaluating our lives and redefining our priorities to make sure we are living it well.  It would be fascinating (or perhaps amusing!) to lug out that Rubbermaid tub out of my basement and intentionally explore my entries to see if there is evidence of the answers I found to the questions she suggests that we ask ourselves about our lives: What’s right?  What’s wrong?  What’s confused?  What’s missing?

Would the ramblings of an 18-21 year old show evidence of the pulls and pushes in her life?  How have those pulls and pushes changed now that I’m 49 years old?  Would I recognize some of those same struggles that I had then with prioritizing the right things that I still grapple with now?  Slowing down, or perhaps even stopping to take time and to ask those questions can bring us to a better place in our spiritual life.  Re-establishing what you want your life to be about can happen at any age; determining what your “Islands of Personality” are (think the movie Inside Out) seems essential to moving forward toward the plan God has for your life. 

Disney/Pixar. Inside Out 2: 2025. Islands of Personality.

Once you have discovered what God wants to be the most important things in your life, then you can choose to focus on those and grow into that version of yourself that He longs for you to be - both for the good of His kingdom as well as for your own!