CARRY MY SOUL

That dread of looking into a calendar so overflowing that the obligations are scribbled all over each other. That thousand-tons awareness pressing down that it can’t all be done, at least not well. That churning nausea that some of these important balls will be dropped, and I don’t know which matter most …..

Temptation toys with me to somehow escape to my imaginary paradise: hammock-swaying with my man in a golden lavender-scented breeze somewhere in timelessness ~ my loved ones all within reach ~ gentle quietness and restful alertness ~ ahhh ~ no headaches, no heartaches, no hormones ~ a distant pan flute caressing my soul ~ freedom ~
I try to savor this sensory fantasy long enough to exhale the rising panic, but not so long that it morphs into toxic entitlement.

Inhale: My life is His.
Exhale: “Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit…”
Inhale: Step by step, He will lead me.
Exhale: Okay, let’s take it on together.

Repeat, until blood pressure lessens its roar and breathing has reclaimed free thought flow.

And so, surrendered to His outcome, expecting the unexpected, I hold the whole messy calendar before Him, and via Covey’s Time Management Grid, He helps me strategize priorities.

The essential emerges from the preferential, as He sifts eternal from temporal gravity. Still, it seems much too much.

But I lean into it.

And almost every time, I see the miraculous penetrate the mundane. The more I throw my whole weight behind the endeavor, the lighter it feels. The less I hold back in self-preservation, the more I am energized . I don’t understand it, but I’m learning to trust it.

And joy surprises me at every turn.

Because some temporary toil has eternal value.
Because every soul is priceless.
Because the battle is real and there are casualties.
Because this is the life I was made for now.
Because Life as it should be, waits on the other side.
And He is worth it.

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15:11-14)

Though I cherish my people, I had dreaded last weekend’s two weddings and a funeral (all movie references aside) with many out-of-town visitors on top of my usual responsibilities… My soul was stretched thin, and my time even thinner. But I want to be His friend, and it happened again:
His joy pulsing through me.

At each wedding, and especially the funeral, the tyranny of the minutiae vanished, and the meaning behind it all took my breath away:

“I want to hear You say well done
I want to be welcomed in
I want to feel Your love like sunshine
On my resurrected skin

I want to hear the music play
I want to hear the trumpets sound
I want to hear You call my name
And watch my feet lift off the ground

I will run
Oh and I won’t quit
Chasing Your heart
Just like David did
I’ll coming running
Through the gates
Looking to Your face
Oh I can hardly wait
Until You carry my soul
Carry my soul away”
~ Phil Wickham

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:12-13)