So many of my days are filled. Moments brimming with activity and always accompanied by a lot of noise.
When you have busy lives and three young kids at home, it really does come with the territory. I’ve become accustomed to full days, minutes and seconds.
The other day after an especially busy week, my house was full of people and I just wanted some solace. When I found a spare moment, I sneaked away and sat in the dark in my closet for three minutes. No one even wondered where I went, it was perfect.
I just sat in the dark and listened to my own breath. (I know, I am weird) It seemed rather dramatic, but I felt like I needed a moment that was empty. Free from thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions.
A moment that just was.
Does this sound as crazy as it feels?
It’s like the fuller my minutes are, the more they dictate to me what to feel, what to do, how to respond, etc – but in the empty ones I am free to just be.
And in those moments I find clarity.
We’re always seeking to fill. Fill our wallets, fill our bank accounts, fill our schedules, fill our stomachs, but I’m finding in the emptiness I hear more clearly, feel more deeply, and understand God and myself in a new way.
Maybe this is the concept behind fasting- to worry less about being full (in every capacity) and experience the range of what emptiness brings.
