Creating Calm in the Center of Crazy by Nicole Johnson

Author:Nicole Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2017-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

RESTING

I remember the excitement I felt the first time I went to my space following the weekend at Seasons. I was in my living room (before I had a study) and sat down in my calm chair, barely able to contain my anticipation of getting still and quiet. I was walking into my room in my mind’s eye and taking in the beauty of the space. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for my hard journey and what I could feel it was bringing about inside me. I was so still and I remember thinking, Okay, now what? Really. That’s exactly what I thought. It has taken me fifty years to get here. What should I do first? Nothing? How does one do nothing? If I am successful at this can I check off “nothing” from my list? Hurray! I finished doing nothing! I got nothing done and I’m so happy for myself.

This still cracks me up. After everything it took to get me to this place—the crazy, the crisis, the deeper pain—the thought of instantly turning around and saying, “Well, that was nice. I’m not sure what to do here, so I’ll be going now, goodbye,” was too funny.

I was able to sit in my beautiful space with gratitude and tears. I spent time thanking God for the way he holds me and holds me still. I sank deeper into my calm chair and within ten minutes I was sound asleep. I kid you not. It might have been less than ten minutes. I woke up a little disappointed, but still so grateful.

Earlier in my life I might have beat myself up about this. But that day I could just smile at the comfort and ease I felt being home in the presence of God. I had just received something my body needed by putting myself in a place of care.

I’m reminded of a story I heard years ago about “falling asleep on God.”

A man was asking his spiritual director how he would ever get better at prayer if he kept falling asleep trying to pray. The man felt like he wasn’t effective in spending time with God because he kept drifting off every time he closed his eyes. The wise director asked his student, “How do you feel about your relationship with God when you wake up?” The man confessed he feared God’s disappointment in him.

“What if you perceived God as an old man sitting quietly in his rocker by the fire? God is reading or thinking and you are his dog, lying at his feet? Would that change how you might feel when you wake up?”

It certainly did for me. A change in perspective is no small change. I spent years viewing a relationship with God as yet another thing I was responsible for and therefore capable of messing up. I lived under the weight of what I thought to be God’s expectations, only to discover they were my projections about God’s expectations, and not the real thing.

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