Just Waking Up

It all came together yesterday and I was breathing – alive – again. The day was warm; the sun was shining. In northern Virginia where I lived until last April, it would have been just a fluke – a strange, frustrating promise of warmer weather somewhere off on the snowy horizon. But here in South Carolina, it might possibly have just been the first day of spring! Not the official meteorologists’ date, but my own, everything-is-waking-up day.

Steve and I took the boat out for the first time since November and we cruised up and down the lake at a pace slow enough that the wind didn’t even blow my hair. The entire population of lake birds was up and out – screeching, squawking, and praising God in general.

I saw cormorants swimming along and diving under for fish and then the bump, bump, bump across the water as their tail feathers dip in a few times before they’re airborne. I watched gulls diving for fish and shivered at water that must still be under 55 degrees. I caught my breath and realized that I felt alive, really deep-breathing, life-appreciating alive for the first time in a while.

For an instant I understood those descriptions in books where people with an illness have been given a second chance at life; and they go running out of the doctor's office, seeing and hearing for the first time. And yet in the very next breath, I was down, emotion-wise, in the bottom of the boat. And I thought, is this what it takes? Do I have to be retired, with a boat and no responsibility (for today anyway), lovely weather and birds singing for all to be right with the world? For me to be truly, gut-level happy? Even that’s not it. For to me to be ALIVE, feeling every breath and appreciating it.

Of course the answer is no. There have been plenty of times in my life when it was good and I was grateful while still carrying a load of responsibility, stress and debt. I’ve heard it said that we don’t do nearly as much growing spiritually in the good, mountaintop times as we do during the times of need and complete dependence on God. And so there have also been times when I was on my knees in complete pain but also feeling utterly alive.

So why have I been numbed by life lately? Has my real self, the part of me that enjoys every day that God gives me on this earth, been drifting quietly like our boat tied up all those weeks? And the answer is, as always, my lack was my doing. After Christmas, I decided that God was telling me to back off responsibility a little and, in my usual self-indulgent way, I said, “Great! Put away your Bible and pull out the computer solitaire! Better yet, completely invest yourself in Facebook and cards with friends.”

All right. I exaggerate. But in truth I did quietly tiptoe away from my blessed time with God everyday. I said hello to Him occasionally and did enough Bible study so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed at my study group. But my daily time that He and I so look forward to, my time just getting into His Word and reading for the joy of it was lost.

And it’s funny. The first day or two felt strange, like something was missing. But it got easier and there was always something to pull at me, to claim my time. And the layers of film began to fall over my eyes and ears and around my heart. Finally about 3 days ago, I said, “Enough!” And I went back to my Father who had been waiting patiently. I talked to Him about it, about all of it.

So it wasn’t the sun or the warm weather. It wasn’t the lapping of waves against the side of the boat. The pure joy of being back in the hand of my God awakened my senses and quickened my breath. No, I never really left. I just forgot where I belonged.

Psalm 150:6
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.