Returning to myself

Georgia O’Keefe once famously said that she “did nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”  I have seen thoughtfully composed pictures of powerfully calm looking women with this quote artistically inscribed over them, on my social media feed and sighed a little wistful sigh. If only. If only this summer had brought me to the magical place of feeling oneself again.  If anything I am entering this last week of summer’s bliss feeling more tired, more ragged and less “myself”, whoever that is, than when I entered it’s sunny gates 2 months ago.  Having a bad head cold doesn’t help the situation but I wonder if this mythical woman, rested and one with herself, actually exists.  I don’t think I have met her yet.

Maybe though, times of vacation and change of routine aren’t the only place to find yourself again. Hope springs eternal and I can hope big that a return to routine and more structured rhythms of life might actually allow for familiar paths to feeling known and sure of who I am and where I am supposed to be. Or maybe that feeling of being completely in shalom with myself and others will only come one day in our eternal rest.  C.S. Lewis used our desire and longing for a thing as proof of its actual existence.  And so I know that someday somewhere my desire to feel fully myself, fully at rest, fully known, is based in the reality that that is possible.

Renewed, refreshed and free.

But for today, we transition on to the next season. September is just around the corner with all its new pencils, books, and routines. Like it or not we march on to the next thing required of us. Refreshed or not.  Tired and sick or tanned and rested.  The new calendar page is turning over fresh and white, ready for the story to keep unfolding. Maybe the faithfulness of doing the next right thing is part of what is shaping us to be who we were really meant to be.  Maybe doing the wrong thing and seeing our failing and needing to repent is also pushing us forward.  Because seeing our mistakes makes us turn to the one who was sinless and admit our lack and our need and anything that brings me back to Jesus is a good thing.

I’m choosing to give thanks today, here in the tired and empty, bringing me back to the first things I was made for.  Like our brother Saint Paul said in the beginning of his letter to his friends in Rome, we can say “First I thank my God.”  Today I am starting my day tired, sick and grateful.

Thank you God for today’s warm sunbeams falling slanted through cool morning air.  Thank you for the smell of what’s next steaming up from this good land you have placed us in.  Thank you for new shoes and new books and nerves and excitement for what’s next.  Thank you for the moments summer gave of floating in water looking up at blue sky.  Thank you for frenzied days doing the good work you have called us to.  Thank you for hope for tommorow. Thank you for full closets and fridges and gas tanks.  Thank you for friends to process life with. For hard conversations and tears and feeling let down and needing to look up. For family to love and be loved by.  For church community to gather in. Thank you for Jesus showing us the way. Thank you Father for running to find us when we were a long way off. Thank you Spirit for breathing new life and drawing us under the wings of your Love.

Read more of Joni's work at Returning to myself - Joni Bouma