Vestry Reflection - Rebecca Gallegly
“I am fine, just really busy!” Is my normal answer, but if I am honest this season feels so hectic. I am Mom to teenagers whose mood swings change by the moment, I work hard to help my three kiddos succeed at school, with ever-changing challenges, I am supporting a friend who is in the midst of a terrible divorce and financial mess, I am holding the sadness of my extended family losing their home in the palisades fire, I am helping my sister and her husband navigate a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor diagnosis for him, I really feel the political disruption, I continue to grieve my dad, I am the keeper and executer of the family calendar, I am the friend who says yes you can drop off your kids at a moments notice so they can attend to crisis.
I am in the habit and rhythm of assuming that I am in charge of solving “all the problems” and “doing all the things”.
With this mindset I have allowed the beauty of the ordinary everyday moments to be engulfed by the “to do list”. Instead of living fully present with what is, I have clenched my fists tightly shut, trying to hold on to anything that I can control.
With this analogy, I am reminded of how much I am healed and filled with the Holy Spirit when I am given the opportunity to surrender, hold my hands up, and sing worship song. You see I come from summer campfire songs and non denominational mega churches.
When I hold my hands clenched tight in an attempt to control, solve, and manage “all the things” (which I have gotten extremely good at), finding beauty becomes far more difficult. I don’t want to live in a world without beauty and I know in my heart that beauty and joy are more likely to be found in letting go and ceasing my attempts to control. So here is to a season and rhythm of allowing my hands, your hands, our hands, to be open in everyday worship!
I want to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Shauna Niquest.
“I don’t know when the dawn will break, for you or for me, but I know that the healing comes in the trying and that even in the dark we have to keep practicing our callings, whatever they are. We have to keep doing the things we were made to do, the daily acts of goodness and creativity and honesty and service – as much for what they bring about inside us as for the good they do in the world. Those two things work together, and they both matter.”
Shauna Neiguist; I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet