What am I here for today?
Sometimes I wake up with that prayer on my heart. It’s a prayer I would like to wake up with every day.
What am I here for today?
This morning, an answer came to me:
You are not here to wash the floors, to fold the laundry, or to get “stuff” done.
I needed to hear this.
I realize that while these tasks need to be done (eventually), they are not my purpose. If they are left undone, no pressure. There is always tomorrow.
Just a few weeks ago, I cried on the drive to preschool because I was not “accomplishing” anything.
Not accomplishing partner somewhere.
Not writing publishable poetry.
Not keeping my house clean.
Big or small, accomplishing means a lot to me. Accomplishing makes me feel good about myself.
I’m happy creating something that is not immediately undone.
But accomplishing isn’t my purpose. There are days that I can “accomplish” non-stop: buy groceries, wash, dry, and fold 5 loads of laundry, cook 3 meals, baby-sit my nephew, mow the lawn, and divide flowers in the garden. (Such productive days are a rarity for me.) Or in my other life it looked like this: get the kids dressed and dropped off at daycare; spend all day writing a brief; gather the children; make dinner; help with homework; put them to bed; and work some more. And while getting stuff done is nice, I can spend my days accomplishing but still feel empty.
What I really need is time to be.
What I really need is to make space:
For God.
For others.
For being.
What I really need is to notice beauty and give beauty back.
To teach my kids while they will learn from me.
To receive light, to be light.
To receive love, to be love.
I wonder if that is what I am here for today? I wonder if that is what I am here for every day? The rest, I trust, will fall into place.
And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be. It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants and drain away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water
Jessica Sanborn 