Something Beautiful

I prayed that one day my life would slow down long enough to where I could breathe, let alone think. I was so caught up in life at church and ministry, that I neglected my time with the Lord. I’m a PK (Pastor’s Kid), at the time an office manager at a church and a leader in our women’s ministry. I was an example. An encouragement. But I wasn’t spending enough time with Jesus. Sure I’d pray throughout the day, after all, that was part of my job! But the time I needed to spend with the Lord alone, to listen and grow my faith on my own, just wasn’t there. 

Friends started pointing out that I never had time for them. Guy friends started telling me I wouldn’t get a date if I didn’t slow down long enough to even get to know someone. I was living with my parents at the time, working with my Dad so I saw him all the time, but my parents house was still a revolving door. I saw them briefly in the morning, and every now and then briefly in the evening before I crashed. 

One day I received a text from a friend asking me if he could ask me a personal question. I hesitantly said yes. He asked me if I was interested in a certain man that he was friends with and if I would ever go on a date with him. I jokingly asked if we were still in high school and why the man couldn’t ask me out himself. His response kind of shook me a little… he said, he’d like to but he doesn’t think you’ll respond because you’re so busy.

What!? I couldn’t believe it. This man was an actual friend of mine who texted me and called me often, hung out with me on a regular basis.
Then the text from him came asking me on a date. I looked at my calendar and realized my friend was right. I didn’t have time. The week he asked me out was one of the busiest weeks of that month for me and I was already exhausted. I was working in the office full time, leading music for our VBS every night that week and planning a friends wedding for that weekend. Oh and to top it off? I had shingles.

But I made time. 

Eventually I did find time and he was so gracious to work around me schedule and in the beginning of our relationship we were out on a date and my phone rang. It was a Saturday around 3pm. I pulled my phone out and he saw who was calling, one of the pastors from work. He looked at me and said, are you really going to answer that right now? 

I thought about it, and then decided not to. We talked about it and he pointed out to me that the white space in my life was very minimal and that I needed to set some serious boundaries with our church staff regarding my time, when they could contact me, etc. 

In that moment I realized that he was right. Not only was I neglecting my time with those I cared about, but I was also neglecting my time with the Lord altogether. 

We NEED white space in our life. We go go go ALL the time, and when we stop, we crash. How can we give our best to God if we are utterly exhausted all the time from going non-stop?
COVID sent us in one direction or the other. It either tought us to slow down, or we became even busier. For me it was the latter. 

Now, we’ve gone right back to where we started. We live in a society where if you’re not going a million miles an hour ALL THE TIME, you aren’t fully living. 

Fast forward 4 months after I broke up with that man, and threw myself back into work and ministry. I was having headaches that were unbearable and couldn’t be explained. I went to the Dr. and they found a mass above and behind my jaw, encased around a nerve. After further testing and multiple God things, I had that tumor removed. Thankfully it was non-cancerous. But when I was prepping for surgery, my Dr. told me I would need to plan on being off work for about a month, maybe a little longer. He told me I would need to rest and take it easy during that time as I would need to build up my stamina again and that stress would prolong the healing process. By this time I had put those boundaries with our staff in place and I THOUGHT, I was leaving enough white space in my life. But God thought otherwise. After surgery I had a month and a half of sitting at home resting and recovering. Let me just say there’s only so much tv you can watch and books you can read during a month and a half time…..and when your surgery effects your vision in the beginning, even those two things aren’t that fun! 

I listened to a lot of worship music, I prayed A LOT but I also just listened. Sometimes that’s all He asks us to do. 

Fast forward 2 years and I moved to Dallas! My dream city. I knew very few people, moved in with a few girls I’d only met over the phone and not a church family in sight that I could cling to. Talk about trust and faith. I had no idea what went through my head through that move but it was totally the Lord. I was coming from a church where I had my hand in literally every ministry in same way form or fashion, knew basically every single person in the church since I grew up there to not even knowing where I was going to go to church the Sunday after I arrived in Dallas. I knew no one, and my family 20 min. across town and had their own lives. 

The first couple of weeks I slept SO much. Not because I wanted to, although that was part of it, but also because I was THAT exhausted from my previous job and life. There were so many mornings I woke up regretting sleeping so late and one morning the Lord tapped me on the shoulder and said, Heather it’s ok! You NEED this time to rest and you NEED this time to listen. I begrudgingly listened and eventually found a church where I’ve been able to serve in multiple capacities! 

Fast forward another 3 years. I fell in love with a man I thought was my husband. He was kind, generous, had a huge servants heart, and loved me for me. He was everything I wanted in a man and then some. But God said no. I don’t understand it, I don’t get it and I don’t know what God has planned next. But one thing I learned through that healing process, was that God wanted my full attention. How did He get it? Well, not only by removing the man I was in love with from my life, but also by creating lots of white space in my calendar. Work was slow. As hard as I’ve tried to get overly involved at Church, my church is fantastic about not allowing you to over-commit. And unfortunately I didn’t have much community at the time. But through that, the Lord showed me that He wanted me all to himself. That HE was all I needed at that time. Did it hurt to have that much white space as I healed from a major breakup? Heck to the yes! But did my relationship with the Lord grow and become stronger because of that time? Heck to the yes! 

I kind of have a love-hate relationship with the story of Mary and Martha, mainly because it’s convicting, but I also love it because Mary shows exactly what Jesus wants us to do. SO often we are the Martha’s of this world. Picking up the kids from school and taking them to soccer, then rushing home to feed them before going to the next thing. What kind of an example is that to our kids? Your kids are exhausted from doing all the things already and they’re kids! They don’t need to be involved in 5 sports in the same season. 1 is enough. You may say, well Heather you don’t have kids so you don’t understand. No, I don’t have kids, but I do understand because I was a kid once. My Dad is the worship and administrative pastor at the church I grew up in and when I say we were at the church every time the doors were open…. your kids are tired. Sometimes I’ll ask my sister if she and her family want to meet up for dinner and her response often is, we’ve been out every night this week, and we just need to rest. She gets it. 

Back to Mary and Martha.

We see Mary where? Sitting at Jesus feet, right where she’s supposed to be. 

And Martha? Pulling out the roast to slice. Mary was working on the homemade mashed potatoes before Jesus came (because ya know, can’t have boxed when Jesus is coming!) and now the potatoes are just sitting in the mixer and the butter and milk need to be added!
The salad needs to be put in a bowl and the bread needs to be pulled out of the oven before it burns! The table is half set because again, Mary is “slacking”! 

So Martha, in her frustration, asks Jesus, who she thinks of ALL people will make Mary get up and help her. She asks, “Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her to help me.”

I picture Jesus looking up at Martha with the sweetest expression on His face and calmly saying, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Talk about a reality check! I can imagine Martha might’ve been embarrassed, as I would have been. But I can also imagine her with the salad bowl in her hand when she asks Jesus her question and then hearing his answer, sighing and walking back into the kitchen to set down the bowl and turn the oven off and go sit right next to Mary. 

How do we do that realistically? How do we create white space in our schedule to sit and listen to what the Lord has for us? It’s there, you just have to set down whatever is in your hand and make it happen. Stop throwing out the excuses and start putting down some boundaries to rest and listen from the Lord. “No” is a complete sentence… use it. God created the world in 6 days, what did He do on the 7th? He RESTED. 

So you think your schedule is busier than God’s that you don’t have time to rest and listen? Sister, you are so very wrong. If God can make time to rest, so can you. We have got to stop acting like we are better than God in that area. He created the whole freaking world and everything in it yet still found time to rest. As Christians, little Christs, it is our job to replicate God and who He is, that includes taking time to rest and sit at his feet in silence listening to what He has for us. Is it easy? No. It isn’t. Is it possible? “…with God ALL things are possible.” Matthew 19:26b