Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.
Donald Miller, from the Author's note in 'Through Painted Deserts' (p. x)
This is one of my favourite books. I'm reading it again, because... because I suppose I'm feeling restless again. I'm longing for a journey. I'm gazing into the distance. I'm hungry for something that I can't put into words. I'm yearning for more from life, more depth, more of knowing God and knowing how to love better.
Some days these feelings make me want something new, something else, want more change. [Other days they make me want to hide away for forever until my bones feel less uneasy]
But there's a difference between leaving and running away. I have just left somewhere. We've been in Cornwall for 4 months. That's not very long, is it? It feels like we've been here a while. And I'm on a journey even as I am stationary. Even as I am living in a house and working at a restaurant and shopping for food and driving in and out of Penzance most days. Even then, I can still change, I can still grow, I can still write a good story with my life. I just think it's more of a challenge than when you are on the move or going through big life changes. Leaving now would be taking the easy way out.
So God, help me learn, once again, like I had to in Brighton, how to STAY. [For a while, at least]. Help me learn to embrace stillness and silence. Help me find peace when it's all to easy to worry about the things that fill our day to day lives. Help me live my ordinary life in an extraordinary way. Help me re-direct my restlessness to mine your depths of love and mystery rather than letting it unsettle my mind and spill over, splashing ugly grey onto the people and places around me.
Don't let me go, though.
Don't let me go unchanged, unmoved.
Don't let me become numb to protect my heart.
Don't let me go.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.
Donald Miller, from the Author's note in 'Through Painted Deserts' (p. x)
This is one of my favourite books. I'm reading it again, because... because I suppose I'm feeling restless again. I'm longing for a journey. I'm gazing into the distance. I'm hungry for something that I can't put into words. I'm yearning for more from life, more depth, more of knowing God and knowing how to love better.
Some days these feelings make me want something new, something else, want more change. [Other days they make me want to hide away for forever until my bones feel less uneasy]
But there's a difference between leaving and running away. I have just left somewhere. We've been in Cornwall for 4 months. That's not very long, is it? It feels like we've been here a while. And I'm on a journey even as I am stationary. Even as I am living in a house and working at a restaurant and shopping for food and driving in and out of Penzance most days. Even then, I can still change, I can still grow, I can still write a good story with my life. I just think it's more of a challenge than when you are on the move or going through big life changes. Leaving now would be taking the easy way out.
So God, help me learn, once again, like I had to in Brighton, how to STAY. [For a while, at least]. Help me learn to embrace stillness and silence. Help me find peace when it's all to easy to worry about the things that fill our day to day lives. Help me live my ordinary life in an extraordinary way. Help me re-direct my restlessness to mine your depths of love and mystery rather than letting it unsettle my mind and spill over, splashing ugly grey onto the people and places around me.
Don't let me go, though.
Don't let me go unchanged, unmoved.
Don't let me become numb to protect my heart.
Don't let me go.
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