The Midweek: A Poem

Over the last several months, as I (Pastor Hannah) have been working to finish my Master's Degree in Spiritual Formation, I have found myself returning to these two quotes regularly:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. –Annie Dillard

Most of us are more tired than we know at the soul level. We are teetering on the brink of dangerous exhaustion, and we cannot do anything else until we have gotten some rest. We can't really engage any spiritual disciplines well until solitude becomes a place of rest for us, rather than another place for human striving and hard work. –Ruth Haley Barton

Both of these cause me to pause, examine, and get curious about my habits.

When I do, I find that my truest self really does want to spend my days becoming more aware of God's presence and becoming more capable of Christ's love. I do want solitude with God to be a restful, restorative place, not another chore or place to perform.

One way I've been habit-building in my real life is by turning my phone off more. For the last three to four years, I've been slowly and painstakingly building a habit of having my phone out of sight from 5-7:30 p.m. daily so that I can be tuned in to my family. It's taken literal years to get the compulsion to check my phone out of me in those hours.

One thing I've been experimenting with this fall is turning my phone completely off for most of Saturday. It's felt vulnerable (What if I miss something important? What if someone asks something of me and I don't see it in time?), and I've been grateful for what I'm seeing God do in me as I exercise some faith.

As I give less attention to my shiny phone and its dopamine hits, I am finding it easier to become aware of God's ever-present companionship, hear God's voice and notice my internal world, and to show up for others more consistently with loving attention. When I slow down like this, I find my capacity for creativity grows. Lately that's meant reading and writing more poetry.

So, for this Midweek, I wanted to share a poem I wrote on a recent Saturday. May we all continue to find and protect pockets of rest and spaces of solitude with God.

Finally Free

I have climbed ladders & mountains

striving so hard blistered and limping

as I ascend,

searching for validation.

I have looked into the eyes

of Your dear ones,

demanding that they

give me a Father's blessing.

I have toiled so hard

to be needed, to be enough.

My labor like a vapor.

It's still... just me.

It's the me that was loved

before I knew Love's name.

It's the me that doesn't have all the answers,

awed before the Author of all.

It's the me that wounds and forgets,

who You've never discarded or forgotten.

It's the me that has sought attention & affection,

only to find I have always had Yours.

Me is all I've ever been,

all I could possibly be.

Finally, I'm free–

my Father's blessing in hand

Christ's justification on my heart

the Spirit's whisper guiding my steps.

Finally, I'm free.

joy,

Pastor Hannah

Were you gone this Sunday?

• Catch Pastor Hannah's sermon telling the story of the faithful women of Exodus 1-2 our Out of Egypt series on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts during your commute or morning walk this week.