Hurry Down

As part of a new blog space in connection to an amazing project called Hope Hour https://www.hopehour.org/ created by a close friend of mine, Laura Evans, I was asked to write a short piece about where I have seen God in my life recently.
This reminded me that I had not posted a blog for a while and I have a few stories pending that I would like to share. For now, I thought I would share the piece I wrote for Hope Hour . . .

Recently I feel like God has been teaching me to stop hurrying through life; to swap the all too familiar ‘hurrying up’ for something new and different, a ‘hurrying down,’ if you like. A slowing of pace and rhythm. A pausing to enjoy the simpler moments, the many thousands of moments that make up a whole life.

To stop rushing through life and to make slowing down something I ‘rush’ to prioritise instead. 

I feel like this life lesson is a call to enjoy life a little more deeply, to savour all the little things, to rest and be replenished more freely and frequently and to trust in Our Good Father more.

Before I would have described last year, 2023, as a busy year but I’m trying to avoid that word, ‘busy,’ as I’m learning that it goes hand in hand with ‘hurry’ and ‘rush.’ Instead, I’m choosing to say that it was a full year, full of lots of beautiful, big and bountiful moments.
It started with a proposal and a new job and ended with a wedding and celebrating completed goals and achievements.

I felt blessed by so many things that happened and one of the things that has been stuck in my mind are words spoken by one of our church pastors. He told us, as his fellow team members, that if we did not rest over Christmas and New Year, we were not honouring God. Because not resting would be like saying we didn’t trust that God would take care of the things that He wanted to see happen; that He could and would do it. It would be placing ourselves in a higher position than we should hold. Of course, we are part of God’s work and mission, but He calls us to and for Himself first. He calls us to rest and be still, to trust and obey. There are times for rest, for slowing down and breathing a bit deeper and longer. I am finding that life is that bit sweeter and fuller when I live in the present more intentionally and enjoy all the moments.