Rest

All I ever wanted,
All I ever needed,
Is here in my arms.
Words are very unnecessary.
They can only do harm.
Enjoy the silence.
-Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode

I can honestly say this week has just been a very interesting and awesome week all in the same time. It wouldn't be a week that I would say that I did so much that I will always remember. I didn't climb a mountain. I didn't invent a hydrogen car. I didn't write a hit album. Looking back I don't know that I did anything super significant action wise. But this has been a week of just thinking. Residing in that safe yet so dangerous place in my mind.

I can honestly say I did not start this week off well at all. As I have been vocal about to many people, I've felt a little lost. Not lost because I am back home and not in Florida. Not lost because I lost a job or anything. Lost in my ambitions, I guess I would say, or lack of ambitions. On tuesday night I met up with my friend Jamie in nashville. We decided to meet and have a bite to eat around 9. Well... I was in a truck in nashville at 6:30 and didn't want to drive home and then drive back. So I parked the truck at the parking lot at Centennial Hospital and just put my headphones in. I just decided to walk. The tunes for that walk, La Dispute. I will admit, and not shamefully at all, I listened to the album, "Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair" 4 times that day. I couldn't get enough of it. So me and my best friend for the day, La Dispute went on a walk. We walked from Centennial Hospital which I thought was the safest place to park our business truck without chances of it getting stolen(Put that disclaimer in their for you mom and dad haha), and we walked to FYE on West End. And then continued to walk to 21st avenue where I walked on the sidewalks surrounding Vanderbuilts campus and of course, I stopped at Great Escape. Duh. haha.

But while I walked air drumming in the air till some little waisted little Vandy jogger, who me and La Dispute both knew, didn't need to be working out would pass by. And then as they passed, it was right back to the little tap on my pants leg that lead to full on arms flailing like an idiot, then the little waisted Vandy girl would jog by unexpectedly, catch me off guard, then I go right back. haha.

But as me La Dispute kept going I couldn't help but just walk and examine. Just watch the people passing me in the streets. The students behind the gates of the campus grounds of Vanderbuilt University. I was jealous. I was jealous of their goals. And of their perfect location. haha. I wish I could live on the Vandy campus. It is right in my favorite part of nashville. But location fell second to the ambitions and goals in the eyes of the little waisted Vandy jogger and the college guys walking the streets. They had something...

Thusday I spent the day talking with people and their problems. I came home just feeling so beat up. Just beat up in general. Its not the people who were talking to me that days fault, it was me. I wasn't in a good place. That night I laid in bed and You know that feeling when the lights go out and the friends go home and its just you and your thoughts. That moment when you just feel the real state of you? Yeah. That moment. I was in it, and I wasn't doing very well. I looked up at the ceiling. Me and God haven't been awesome the last few weeks. Not His fault, definitely mine, and my refusal to view problems. So I just prayed that night, "I'm done, God, I'm done with me avoiding you and spending my time questioning you and your existence. I'm done reading the text and being cynical in if its true or not. God please, forgive me, I am wrong. Forgive me. I'm done with this state." I then fell asleep with a better state of mind.

I woke up to a better day. A better state of mind. A better outlook, I think. That day I met with my 2nd 2nd mother, Lorrie Harden, and we had an awesome 2 1/2 hour breakfast/lunch at El Reys in Ashland City. It was just an awesome conversation. She pushed me. She pushed me to think about the future. She asked me a series of questions about what I love and my passions. And It really got me on the right path of thinking. It made me really start to open my eyes and just go, "Yeah, I can do that." She made me list what I thought I was good at, which is a hard thing to do when you strive to be humble. But even the humble should be able to tell you if they make a mean sandwich or not. haha. So we talked about my strengths and weaknesses. Where I'd like to be in 10 years. Where I don't want to be. We looked at so many different angles. The conversation really I think just kind of got me out the rut. I have looked at college at this pointless vessel that I'm riding for this so called "future family." But after the lunch I really looked at it like this place of opportunity. A place I can study the things I really love and pursue a career in something I love doing. It really was a big turn around for me. My mind starting viewing it that way a little bit at the end of the florida trip but this luncheon solidified it, so I want to thank the Graves family, my family, and the Harden family for getting me where I am today on that subject. And thanks especially to the awesome Bible study Mr. Jeff that taught me its ok to try, and for your coaching lessons lorrie, and for your love and awesome foundation that I can always rely on mom and dad.

So my mind has been kind of just been in a good place of solid thinking and really just a good place. Another thing that I really got out of this week was a sermon I listened to on my ipod. (I never do this by the way, don't think I am some scholarly kid or anything.) It was a sermon by Rob Bell about the Sabbath. And it really just sunk in with me. It was a lot about how we should live as christians and one of the main points he talked on in Week 1 of the 7 week series was remembering the Sabbath. I think that is one thing that I just nod my head and go yea I do that. But then I realize, well I drove to Crosspoint North this morning at 6 am. Then drove home, then drove my boys around, then drove lane to his house, and had a meeting at 5:30. So today I had to just say, no I can't go to the leaders meeting. I need rest.

That is something that is so hard for me to do. I don't take a lot of time to just say No to something for the sake of rest. If someone is depending on me, or asks me to something I feel obliged to be there, or do that thing. I feel bad for missing the leaders dinner tonight, but at the same time, I feel good. That sounds terrible, sorry George, Debbie, and Jehan and Carlos. But it is a big deal for me to actually just say no and lay down. So thats what I did. I laid down and watch a movie with my boys and napped a little. It was awesome.

So after a week of alot of thinking and La Dispute, and a lot more Brand New. I realized, something we need, or at least I need. Is that rest. That time to slow down. That time to just drive with the windows down with Brand News "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me," playing and just being lost in thought. Sometimes you need to just not let the next task take over your mind set. As Rob Bell put in that sermon I listened to. Be in the moment. He talked about going to dinner with a person one night and when the waiter came to the table, the man said, "Take our drink orders now and we'll order the food in an hour." Rob Bell said everyone freaked out at first, but then he had goosebumps, realizing this man really cared. He really wanted to just sit and talk. Cell phones off, fully focused in on that moment. Fully there. He then went on to say we need to just worry about the worries of that day and be done. Don't think of yesterdays mistakes or tomorrows tasks. Focus on todays and when they are done, rest. Rest.

And rest, I am training myself to do. It's not worth living this life with my blood pressure high as ever, worrying about stuff that in the long run doesn't matter. Rest. Instead of sitting in the car and freaking out about how I am going to finish that video thats due wednesday, I am going to enjoy the weather and the radio. I can't make that video in that moment, so why worry about it? And then when I get home I'll work on it, and when its done. Its done. And I will rest. Not worry about the next video. I will pour myself a glass of orange juice, (Like i am about to do right now) and say job well done. Now rest.




Media Associated With This Post:
Song: Such Small Hands
Artist: La Dispute
Album:Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair

Song: Jesus
Artist: Brand New
Album: The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me

All Picture Highjacked From Google Images