Let Stillness Be Your First Step To Healing

How do you find stillness amidst the storm of all your daily concerns? How do you find peace when there are mouths that need to be fed, when there are expectations that need to be met, when people around you are hurting and counting upon you alone?

Why seek stillness at all?

When we are faced with grave difficulties, our instincts often lead us to our fight or flight mechanism.  We are alarmed, we panic, and we move just for the sake of moving, as though by worrying and keeping busy, we are already addressing the problem at hand.  But are we?

To seek stillness is to seek a solution first before wasting our time with useless efforts that only make us tired and exhausted later on.  To seek stillness is to have a clear mind that can give us true guidance.  It is to be able to tap into a source of power before spending our energies in futile tasks.

It is said that worry is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.

If you truly want to help the people around you, if you truly desire to find the answer to your problem, you must begin from a place of power, not from a place of fear.

It is foolish to set out on a journey to a place you’ve never known before without acquiring a map first, but that’s what we do.  We set about in our actions even before knowing the best thing to do, even before trying to be still.

To be still is not to waste precious time doing nothing. To be still is to spend useful moments contemplating and receiving the true answer to your concerns.

How Do You Know You’ve Entered Into Stillness?

You will know that you have entered into a place of stillness when you are no longer preoccupied with your worries.  Physical stillness is not enough, for your mind could be racing on so many thoughts even as you sit still.

If the raging tides of the seas symbolize your worries and anxieties, it is the calm undisturbed waters of the deep that will represent your stillness.  Deep in the waters, there is a place that is untouched by all the raging currents at the surface.  That’s the place of stillness.  It doesn’t mean that every storm has subsided, it just means you’ve entered a place where you can be calm even amidst the many storms around you.

The Door To Stillness

Sometimes we wonder why God had to wait until we’re tired and worn out, until we’ve finally given up before He gives us what we want.

And the answer is that we have made Him wait that long before we allowed Him to carry on His work and give us what it is we’ve been praying for.

We don’t enter into stillness as a sign of our triumphs.  We enter into stillness because we finally surrender.  We acknowledge our hurts, our fears and our disappointments.  We acknowledge that we don’t know what to do next.  We acknowledge that we need to pause and to retreat for a while because our powers are no longer sufficient to carry us through the rough times ahead.

To be still is to surrender, and there is great power in surrender!

“Be still and know that I am God.”

Most people do not accomplish everything they are capable of doing because they have not come to the end of themselves and the beginning of their God-ordained destiny.

Have you come to the end of your self?  To the ends and limits of your own powers? Then you have just arrived at the door of stillness.  Go ahead.  Open the door, and you will find the answer you’re looking for.

 

There Are Rays of Hope Even In Our Darkest Hours

God has never led me through a difficulty in which there is no resulting joy that far surpasses the difficulty I’ve been through.

Are you going through a difficulty that seems so hard you’re wondering if you’d ever make it through? Do you feel you’ve already done your best, that you have fought so hard already and still the battle seems so far from being won?

Perhaps you’ve been hurt by another. Or perhaps you’ve lost someone so close to you that you wonder how you’d ever live your days again.

Take heart for you are never alone. In your darkest hours, in your weakest, you’d find the strength you need to carry on. In the most hopeless of situations, a helping hand will be with you, and things will turn around in such a way as to make the most depressing of circumstances in your favor.

Try not to think of the many days ahead, think only of today. Think only of the moment. In this blessed moment, you have God with you, embracing you, whispering unto you: I have always loved you, my child. That is all that matters.

Every difficult task that comes across your path – every one that you would rather not do, that will take the most effort, cause the most pain, and be the greatest struggle – brings a blessing with it. And refusing to do it regardless of the personal cost is to miss the blessing. – Streams in the Desert

It is through the most difficult trials that God often brings the sweetest discoveries of Himself.

 

Fear Not, My Child

Fear not my child

Fear not.

Rid yourself of useless anxieties,

There is more that you can do at rest

than you can ever do fretting about.

Let everything that you do

be done out of love

pouring out of a peaceful heart.

It is not how many ideas

that run through your mind

that matters.

It is the way that you believe.

It is the way that you surrender

to everything that is good

which heaven is showering you

in every moment.

Fear not my child

Fear not.

There is no need for you to hurry

nor for your hands to tremble.

Time stops for love

and love alone.

And I want you to enter

the door that leads to forevermore.

 

When God Prays

My beloved, why do you cry? Why do you fill your heart with gloom and hopelessness? Why do you hide from me? Why do you bear this burden that is not yours? Was the night so long you never thought it would surrender to another sunrise? Was the winter too cold you never thought you could feel warm ever again? I am deeply troubled with your troubles. I am utterly concerned that I could not sleep. I know your wounds for they are mine as well. I know your tears and I would like to take them away.

No reply.

My beloved, it’s been so long since I heard your voice; so long since you poured out your heart to me. How I long to hear them once again. How I missed it! How I miss the songs you used to sing. How I miss you! How I yearn to enjoy your presence once more.

No reply.

My beloved, has the world deafened the ears that used to listen to my voice? Has the noise of the world been so loud you couldn’t hear my gentle whisper? How I’d like to shout upon you like thunder! To reach out to you like the crashing waves! But it is not my way, beloved. I am not among the fire nor the lightning nor the storm. I am the soft breeze that whispers unto you with unfailing love.

I do not have the love that you have, or the patience that you have for me. I do not care if you bring me fire or thunder or rain for it is just the same! This life is not good to me. It would have been better had I not been born at all!

Why do you despise life; life that I have given you? Have I not formed you in your mother’s womb? Have I not chosen you before the birth of the earth? Have I not fashioned you intricately, passionately, wonderfully, uniquely, perfectly beyond any conceivable thought or miracle? Have I not breathed on you? Have I not given you my own heart? Have I not made you in my own glory and immortality?

I can see no beauty whatsoever in the creature that I am. There is no hope for me for I am wretched and most unfortunate of men. Men will never look upon me with admiration or respect. Men would never even notice me, for who am I? Who am I that anyone should care about me?

You say you fashioned me. You say you breathed your life unto me, but I have none. Death has more mercy for one such as me.

Why do you choose death? Why prefer darkness to light? Sorrow over joy? Despair over hope? Have I not given you freewill? Have I not given you a mind such as my own?

Freewill belongs only to those blessed upon the earth. Men such as me have no choice whatsoever. Why hope when you will be frustrated in the end? Why desire light when you cannot prevail over darkness?

My beloved, have I not given you strength? Have I not poured out Wisdom unto you? Have I not armed you with everything you need to face the battles of this world? And have I not come before you and claimed victory over the war you cannot win?

Why do you talk to me? Don’t you have any other business to take care of? Why waste your time on me when you can convince a multitude with your words? I am not your only love. I am not the only one you care about so be gone from me! I am nobody’s beloved.

Why do you not trust my heart? Do you not know the love I have for you? And why send me to the crowd when my beloved is here? I leave the ninety-nine sheep for the one I seek. For the one which can never be replaced. For the one whom I will hide in the shadow of my wings. For the one whose name is written forever in the palm of my hand.

You speak so wonderfully as though it is the truth. As though you know how I feel.

There is no truth but I. And the truth is that I have loved you so much that I despised my life so you can have yours.

What is this life you’re talking about anyway? If there is heaven, why don’t you bring me there? It is different to walk the face of the earth. It is different to face the people that I face. To struggle with the problems I’m going through. To remain standing when a thousand await for me to stumble so they can trample upon me. So they can spit on my face when they have the chance. Where is the glory you’re talking about? They do not even respect me. Where is hope when I don’t even know which road to take?

What is it that you want, my child?

No reply.

What is it that you desire me to give you?

No reply.

Why do you not knock upon the door which waits to be opened up for you? Why do you not ask for the grace that was meant to be yours? Why do you content yourself with garbage when you can seek a treasure, which nobody can ever take away from you?

I am just so tired and worn out. I don’t even have the strength to argue with you anymore.

Then what is it that you want, my beloved?

I’m just so lonely; I wish there could be someone to hold my hand.

He holds our hand.He carries us when we can carry on
no more.He restores our strength.
He renews us.
He picks up the broken pieces
of our hearts
and mends it
as though it were never broken at all.

God speaks, God seeks us in the darkest chambers of our hearts. God longs to hear us, to touch us and comfort us at times when we needed it most. But we are cold and tired and deaf. We hear Him knocking, but we dare not open the door. We hear Him praying, but we pretend not to have heard it, and we turn away.

“Unless a man be broken, he would never reach his limits. Unless he reaches his limits, he would never find the limitless God.”-Joyce, itakeoffthemask.com

You may also want to read: A Little Piece of Heaven

Check Jocelyn's books:

"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.

(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)