laps

Waco, TX

Kat and I have been regularly swimming this summer and it has been exactly what I need.  

It forces me to slow down.  My breathing is slower.  I can’t talk or listen to music.  I am forced to focus on moving through the water.   I can only see the white concrete that is under me.  

I am learning to focus on the present moment.  Not on past failures or fearfully contemplate what lies ahead.  Instead of anxiously planning my days out, stuffing them full of busy activities, I am learning to let them unfold on their own.  

I am being taught to focus on living the present.  

Ann Vokscamp helped me understand rest in One Thousand Gifts.  

She writes, “Wherever you are, be all there. I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.” 

This is what I have always done.   However, I am learning that I am enough.  I don’t have to go scampering around, exhausted, looking for merit badges to cover me up.   Nothing I grab for will ever fully satisfy me, and nothing I do will ever add up.  It’s all God.  He makes me more than enough.  

 I am learning to let my striving cease and just be.