A hot shower can be so revealing.
In a busy life with little breaks, I often take my time in the hot spray to breathe and refocus. It doesn’t always work in a house with one bathroom and two teenage boys and, well, all the things. But there are days when I’m able to step in and focus my mind on the things that matter. Some days I will just daydream. Some days I need to work out a kink in my lower back. Some days, I need to have the white noise of the shower head help me to reflect on what’s been a harder day and hear what was really important through all of the noise.
The noise: The car is broken, the brakes are gone, the list of to-dos from both jobs grows and grows, my many inboxes feel like a slot machine – noisy, cacophonous, with whizzing lights and incredible over stimulation that trigger thoughts that last well into the late night.
Today I stepped into the shower and I reflected on the one voice I heard that seemed to cut through it all. I was working quietly while waiting for choir practice, and not intentionally overhearing the faith study happening at the other end of the room. But, I heard our young and enthusiastic discipleship coordinator share with her group of even younger women about the power of prayer – of praying at 5am, of taking an hour in the afternoon, of falling in love with Jesus in all the ways. She literally has actual stars in her eyes – she is that beautiful and engaging when talking in this way.
And. I felt like the curmudgeonly troll at the other end of the room; middle aged and tired and over worked and over stressed. She, at the beginning of her life and starting it out in all the best of possible ways, and me somewhere in the middle feeling at times like rolling my boulder ever higher is sometimes a weight that is crushing and nerve grinding; and that I find myself sometimes in this dark shadow of toil and expectations. At the time of hearing her, my mind said – “yea right… come and live my life and find a way to carve out that kind of time for prayer” and my mind said – “what about me God? When do I get to have time to pray like that?” and my mind said – “I miss being so young and free that prayer isn’t another burden to feel guilty about because I have no time and I have to pray in the in-between moments, and I have to talk to God in snippets and brief murmurings” and my mind said – “I miss you, God…”
So, today, I reflected on those thoughts and feelings, so I could put them in their proper place and … unbidden (as He does) I remembered praying… praying so hard for hours, for days, for months… for change. I remember praying with a friend on the phone while sitting on a swing while my hateful ex husband sat in the house spinning false stories about me to whomever would listen; I remember pacing a large yard and praying to God for help. I remember the freedom of having hours to say the rosary and being so afraid my husband might come in, unbidden, and hear me and mock me and deride me for loving God. I remembered that I asked for the blessings I have now: The freedom of a home of my own where no one will hurt me any longer; The freedom away from someone who twisted the world and made everything ugly; The freedom to choose. That freedom has a cost – a hard one – I lost all time to myself, except for those delicious few minutes where I can sit in the spray of a shower and quietly refocus my mind and possibly hear His word.
And He came. And He came, and He reminded me and… once again graced my mind with the understanding that HE truly knows how busy I am. That I don’t love Him less for having a cup so full; instead HE is the space between the droplets of every single thing filling my cup. HE is he net that catches me every time I fall. He alone assures that if something should spill, it is still not a waste.
And so. I asked God – how do I pray/help/give… ? How can I do more with so little, and He reminded me that He is holding that space and He alone can shuffle my many things in such a beautiful way that I can do more. That my joy in my freedom and my love for Him opens me up to still doing good for Him and for others in my time here.
He has given me another idea… a good one I think. I will wait to see how the team at the parish thinks about my newest and greatest spark of inspiration .. and in the meantime, I will get my work done so that they may do theirs…
I am so humbled by all of my blessings; I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to work and still have the ability to care for my children, love my pets, and have the gift of music and food to give back to others so that they may also truly find their way to Him.
To remember Him, only He
Who fills our cup, only He
Embodies space, only He
Overflows, only He
Loves,
only He