ryan corson fishing in westcliffe colorado
Responsive Living

Hold Your Breath and Be Still

Do you ever feel like you just completely miss entire seasons?

It’s already April and I remember the snow, ice and cold weather (it’s mostly all still here in high mountain Colorado), but it still feels like winter has just….

flown by.

 

hannah corson

 

And more than the weather, the holidays and my sense of passing time seems…

off.

 

pine trees in the winter

 

Christmas happened? And Thanksgiving? Wait…. is Lent seriously already over? I mean, I didn’t really participate this year. I just couldn’t. But it’s really already Easter??

Although it’s odd, mostly because normally I enjoy these passing milestones AND I obviously took photos of this season (as a Nikon ad I recently saw said, I am part of “Generation Image: Your Camera is Your Voice” #millennials)  I just have this weird, peaceful sense that these seasons come every year, and it’s just OK that I completely missed them this year. I don’t really even have remorse about it. It just happened.

 

I think one part of it is the absurd amount of hours that Ryan has worked over the past 10 months. With him working so much, and with both of us being fairly introverted, we tended to hole up in the apartment to catch a couple minutes together. The downside of this was that we didn’t have many friends while living in Brighton (this was also an upside for two extremely busy introverts). But the reality is that community and relationships are what help mark the passing of time. They often help distinguish one day from another, one season from another.

It’s also hard to celebrate with friends when you don’t exactly feel like celebrating.

Another big part of all this weird numbness has been affected by my dad’s health issues. He has been in and out (mostly in) of the hospital since October with severe, acute pancreatitis. He’s doing better these days, but it wasn’t until after Christmas that the doctors even told him, “It’s ok. You can breath a little now, you aren’t going to die.”

I’m not even in the same state as my family, and those kind of prolonged health issues of a loved one weigh on a person. You kind of just hold your breath a little bit, hoping somehow that will shove all the health and healing into your dad from 800 miles away. You kind of just want to lay low for a while, while he’s forced to lay so much lower. It’s also hard to even want to experience life when you know your family is all dizzy and exhausted from the trauma of it all.

There’s a verse that my dad has had close to his heart (so its been close to mine) since this all started

Be still and know that I am God.

I was reading this, once again, a few weeks ago after feeling overwhelmed with my own life changes and adjustments, and I looked in the Hebrew of this word “be still”. I was slightly shocked to find that the roots of that word included words like

fail

be faint

be feeble

be idle

let alone

be slack

Um. Excuse me. That’s exactly how I have felt about life over the past few months. And here, with words that have come to be so dear to my heart, I am receiving permission to just be all of these things. It’s so wonderfully freeing when the God of the universe (or some dude who wrote on his behalf) tells you (a perfectionistic tight wad) to just go ahead and be the mess that you are. He can take it. He can handle it.

 

groth family

 

 

There is a lot of good news to all this. When life feels like a mess, it’s ok. When major seasons just seem to roll over your numb soul, it’s ok.

Those seasons are going to happen again next year.

There is some relief knowing that even though I’m not experiencing these seasons right now, that lots of people are. And that next year they will too. And perhaps I’ll join in then.

The seasons will come again.

Christmas. Winter. Lent. And Easter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Side note: little brother is soon getting hitched, so there will be much celebration in Austin, TX in just a few weeks.  !!!!!!!!!

joshua and sarah groth

 

Linking up with Leigh Kramer

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3 Comments

  • Reply Chelsea September 2, 2015 at 9:49 pm

    Really enjoyed this post… Had a weird uplifting downer message.Lol. L it is OK to just be where you are Because fid can handle it. Love reading and looking at your life sweet friend.

    So many of the same joys and tasks.except my animals on the farm are children…Lol.

    • Reply RyanHannah September 3, 2015 at 8:09 am

      Haha I hear ya – uplifting downer messages are my specialty ;-) And yes- I’m so thankful God can handle it. And I need to come visit your farm sometime and snuggle with your lil animals! Side note: Michella is about to have her first lil boy any day now!!

  • Reply Autumn on the Homestead October 30, 2015 at 9:49 am

    […] We’re looking forward to what some are calling an”el nino” winter. Which for Colorado could mean feet of snow, gallons of hot tea, and truckloads of wood pellets for the stove. We have family coming for the holidays and we intend to be fully present this year (as opposed to last year). […]

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