The Slow Way

It’s the simple pleasures, isn’t it?

One of my favorite little joys is opening a Yogi tea bag, plopping the leaves into steaming water, and following the string to cup the tag and read the short quote printed on one side.

(It’s almost like cracking open a Chinese fortune cookie, but you don’t feel uncomfortably full with the exorbitant amount of MSG you’ve just consumed.)

I digress.

I’ll never forget one such Yogi quote, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” -Lao Tzu

As spring begins to wake from its wintry slumber in Iowa, the brown, naked forest outside my bedroom window is being filled in with a dozen shades of green. The brush at the wood’s floor was hardly noticeable next to more brown. Now, I see 2 foot tall, 5 feet, 8 feet tall bushes with varying leaf shapes.

When I go on walks, white blossoms shyly unfold from the ends of the white flowering dogwood tree.

I think I would have missed this lesson if I weren’t in a season of waiting.

I am a created being, and when I hurry, not very much is accomplished. This thinking runs contrary to popular thought, so sitting with it longer than the time it takes to drink the cup of tea is unsettling.

However, when I gaze in wonder at the peace of nature, I desire nothing else than the trust that blossom on the dogwood has. She is brave to bud, for there could be another winter storm to freeze her growth or a blazing heat too premature for her to survive. Yet, the order of things being held by a Loving Abba allows all to be accomplished, so the seasons turn and the winter recedes to spring.

Loneliness. Confusion. Grief. Pain. Change. Contentment. Anticipation. Bliss. Countless states of perpetual being. Each able to be used by God to love, mold, teach, and perfect us. Each in which we are able to learn, grow, worship, and adore Him.

Only when we’re not rushing to get through it. Only when we’re patient and peaceful as the dogwood tree, trusting beyond the events of today that tore to ribbons our carefully conjured plans and expectations.

Unshakeable as a firmly rooted oak in the midst of a storm, we have solid ground in Christ.

We need not hurry. It is already finished.

stay lovely,
the tall girl

 

 

 

 

Advertisement