Cups Of Stillness

{via here}

I have been meditating for two weeks on that verse above and then I read this beautiful, beautiful quote this morning:

"Gratitude never comes from avoiding difficulty, but from finding yourself sustained through it. The degree of joy rises to the degree of gratitude, and the level of gratitude corresponds to the level of God’s grace experienced..." 

(It's from this link - it's incredibly worth reading.)

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be still. Is it silence? Not speaking? A posture? Different translations of the Bible I have looked up write that verse with the following words: silent, keep your mouths shut, hold your peace and remain at rest, just stay calm...

I have wondered, though, if it's not physical silence, but an internal stillness, that then bathes our words with a perspective of quiet.

Calm. Peace. Trust. I have wondered what would my words sound like under pressure if they were genuine, authentic, truthful - but still? If there was space to admit weakness, panic even, fears and doubts and worries and concerns - but an underlying stillness in a capacity so far greater than mine.

I wonder what this would look like?

As a family we have been growing a lot recently. Growing in our own capacity to handle pressure, growing in choosing to see our lives through the lens of gratefulness, growing in creating a reflex of trust and worship rather than panic and doubt. We have been fighting to sustain a work we have spent six years building. We thought we had one challenge, it developed into many more. We are facing mountains of impossibilities that we are still praying will be possible.

And, actually, I should say I have been laying down that fight. The one that so often rises up in me, and instead choosing to trust. I am trying to cultivate a place for words that have been first bathed in a still place, a still awareness, of who He is before how I feel.

Our pastor mentioned a couple weeks ago that we begin to crave what we most often feed ourselves. That we can direct our cravings through habit and exposure, through what we fill ourselves with. Shortly after that I read this:

“If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love. For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.”

~ Amy Carmichael via this friend

I am realizing that for my words to be bathed in stillness, I have to be. My home needs to be. My heart needs to be. That what I read, watch, listen to, think about, talk about, include - it all comes out under pressure. It has produced an expectation in me. An expectation that when I fill my heart with the kindness and beauty of who God is, that what (I pray) will come out of my mouth when the pressure is on will be the same.

To live fearlessly, I have to be consumed - filled  - with the fearless one.

I am inspired by that. I am praying for that.

"The words we speak, the words we write, the words we serve our little worlds with, they are meant to only be echoes of the Word.

Meant to make Him smile. Meant to make a way back to their source...

What shapes the way we speak, forms the way we use our words, need only be the Word Himself." 

from here