My life has a pattern. A new hobby or interest comes up, I get very excited about this new thing. I want everyone else to be excited about it too! After some time this interest becomes a habit, something that I enjoy doing but I don’t really think much about it is just automatic. Time continues, the habit becomes repetitive and uninteresting which then turns to the habit feeling like work and maintenance. I then decide that maybe this thing isn’t for me because something new has caught my attention. The pattern continues.
Can you relate?
Some of the best things I have done for myself has been learned and un-learned in this habit pattern.
I have learned how to prepare meals that are full of nutrients.
I have un-learned the need to be particular weight.
I have learned reading is the a great way to manage anxiety and pass time.
I am un-learning the need daily social media.
This fall was a particularly dark season for me. Every wound from relationships that had come to end, for whatever reason, burst open exposing the lack of healing that had been taking place over decades. The pain of not knowing who I could trust. The betrayal of these people even caused a mis-trust of my healthy relationships and even myself. I saw my own actions reflected. The walls I had built up around myself were high, and I was alone.
Alone felt like the safest place. Alone is the place where no one can hurt you. And you can’t hurt anyone.
But alone is DARK. ALONE IS PURPOSELESS.
It took all the learning of good habits and un-learning of bad habits my mind could handle. Not in my strength did I make it through, but it took the those patterns of habits and knowledge of how they served me in the past to help me put one foot in front of another.
The habit of showing up.
The habit of reading truth.
The habit of preaching truth to myself and those around me.
The habit of listening to worship music.
The habit of praising.
The habit of breathing.
The habit of moving.
The habit of planning.
The habit of cooking.
The habit of creating.
The habit of reading.
The muscle memory of these habits gave space for my soul to begin to heal. The slow reassurance of making it through each day produced hope that the dark wouldn’t be forever. The people who continued to show me love, even when I retreated, was a gift from God. An invitation to breathe into what he had prepared me for and the healing he wanted me to go through.
In the years past, I have focused so much on intentionality- which served me as a habit to get through this dark season.
One of the worship songs I listened to on repeat this fall was Hillsong United’s “Another in the Fire.”
“There is no other name
But the Name that is Jesus
He who was and still is
And will be through it all
So come what may in the space between
All the things unseen and this reckoning
I know I will never be alone
There’ll be another in the fire
Standing next to me
There’ll be another in the waters
Holding back the seas
And should I ever need reminding
How good You’ve been to me
I’ll count the joy come every battle
‘Cause I know that’s where You’ll be“
Another in the Fire- Hillsong United
An Invitation 