Just be....Song/What a Wonderful World

I was sitting out on the back porch of this beautiful "tree house" I called it, that I had been blessed with for the weekend while I was in Dadeville, Alabama. I didn't even know Dadeville, Alabama existed until I was asked to come and speak for a women's event and then stay over and speak for their Sunday morning service. So, a precious lady, Nellie Jo, offered me her little "tree house" that overlooked a golf course for the weekend.
(The view from my treehouse.)

That Saturday morning I woke up early, grabbed a blanket, grabbed my iPhone and walked out onto the back porch to have some prayer time before the day got going. I was going to play a prayer CD I have and just pray and reflect to prepare for the day, when I found a CD I really wanted to listen too. For a brief minute guilt surfaced as if to say, "You're going to spend prayer time listening to music?" And I thought, "No, I can't. I have to have a structured time of prayer and reading my Bible before I go and minister to these women this morning."

That was when this still small voice said, "It's okay just to 'be' with me. You don't always have to 'do' when you're with me." And then I began to think of marriage. And how, two people who have been married for years can ride in the car together with no conversation and still be completely connected. Or when you were young and you were riding with your boyfriend in his baby blue pickup truck, before "bucket seats" were the big thing, and you'd scoot over to the middle, and he'd wrap his arms around you, and Kool and the Gang would be singing Cherish the Love on the radio and not one word needed to be spoken. (Sorry, I just went way back for a second to my junior year in high school.) You just knew that being together was enough. It said everything that needed to be said.

And I knew that nothing needed to be said in that moment, all I needed to do was "be." I had already studied. The Lord knew my heart before Him, and all He wanted me to do was just "be" with him. Not "be" anything for Him. But "be" with Him. He and I had had this battle before. And it is something he continually has to remind me of.

Ever have trouble just being? In a world that always seems to demand our "doing", are there moments that we can just "be?" Are there moments when we can "just be still and know that He is God?" He asks us to do it, so He has to know it offers us something. Replenishing maybe? Maybe that's it. Maybe, "being" replenishes for the "doing." Maybe, we would be more effective "doing" if we spent more time "being".

Ever felt like a crisis situation required your doing? And all your doing left you with was more frustration and deeper crisis? Ever wondered if maybe instead, if we would "be still and know", that we'd actually get ourselves out of the way so God could show up as God? I can only imagine how many times my "doing" has prevented God's "being." I get in the way. Help God out. He doesn't move quick enough, so I give Him a little boost. Pave the way just in case He didn't have a clear picture of where He needed to go next.

I give Him a Sarah. Remember Sarah? I talked about her a couple posts ago, but not about this aspect. She was remembered for her faith, by believing God to give her a child in her old age, but before she had that child, she decided to "do" when God had called her to "be." What did she do? Well, she asked old Abraham to get him a younger woman for the evening and have a child with her so Sarah could have the son God had promised her she was going to have, yet still hadn't shown up. God didn't move quick enough, she figured He'd forgotten. She hadn't. So, she handed him her maidservant. He didn't use enough wisdom to tell her no, and little maidservant turns up pregnant and all that joy Sarah thought she'd have turned bitter, and ugly. The product of that moment together produced a son named Ishmael. Sarah later had her own son named Isaac. And do you know that even today, all these years later, the repercussions of one woman "doing" when she should have been "being", produced two peoples that still wage war, one against another. Ishmael- which is the ancestor of the Arab nations, and Isaac-which is the ancestor for the Jewish people.

When I wrote Savannah Comes Undone I was thinking about this whole thing of "being." Here's the scene that was birthed from that thought even a couple years ago.

About two bites into my first piece of catfish, my park-bench friend arrived. I heard her before I saw her. She was humming that same melody she had departed with yesterday. She wore the same dress as yesterday too, carried the same bag, adn didn't look much different than she had twenty-four, or even fourty-eight hours earlier.
"Well, well, young lady. Where's your book?" I laughed, finding it hard to believe she remembered me. "Inside." I motioned to my house. "I didn't bring it for this journey." But she didn't really care about my book. She didn't care about the house either. Didn't care about my mother Victoria's lovely iron balconies, or stately wooden, black painted doors. Couldn't have given a rat's rear end fo rthe pristing ivy growing over our own brick wall that surrounded our fortree. No, her eyes were on my plate. She was like Duke eyeing a tenderloin. I wanted her to pull outher apple and get to eating her own food. She walked up a few steps and planted herself next to me, still fixated on my food.
"Ooh, you got a nice Sunday dinner there, don't ya?"
"Yeah, you can get some at Lady & Son's. It's just up the street." I was even gracious enough to point her in the direction. She wasn't paying a lick of attention to my lead.
"Yeah, maybe I'll try to get over there." But she didn't move. How could she when she never even looked away from my plate? Well, it was Sunday.
"Would you like some?" She turned away, embarrassed.
"Oh, no, baby. I don't want to eat your food. you need your food. You can tell I get all the food I need." She patted her stomach. I wasn't going to argue with her. Then she turned quickly back around. "Well, if you really want me to have some, I don't want to hurt your feelings."
I laughed at her sweet expression. "Here. Take two. Who wants to eat Sunday dinner alone anyway?" I laid a napkin out for her. Gave her some catfish and a homemade biscuit. By the time she was through, Garfield coulnd't have accomplished cleaner bones.
"What's yourname?" "Oh, my name is..." She looked off into the distance as if trying to find something to jog her memory or offer her a name.
"My name is Joy. Yes, it's Joy." She finally answered as more of a declaration.
"Oh, that's a beatufiul name. Here, take a drink." I handed her the tea I had yet to enjoy and offered her the opportunity to wash down what she had virtually inhaled.
"What's your name, precious girl?"
"Savannah," I said, scratching my nose.
"Nose itch?"
"Like crazy. My mother says that means somebody's coming to see you." I raised a right eyebrow at my dinner guest. "Guess she got that one right, huh?"
She looked at me inquisitively. "Well, I think Savannah is a beautiful name for a beautiful girl."
"You don't want to crack a joke about it? Everyone else does." "Now, who would crack a joke about a beautiful name?" I wiped my mouth and gave her the rest of my plate. It seemed she needed it more than me.
"You'd be surprised."
"I'm surprised by a lot of things, Savannah. I'm surprised by how people rush to and for. Hardly stop to breathe. Or give thanks for the abillity to breathe. So busy working and doing and never simply resting or enjoying. I see the lights on in their windows until late in the night. They type on computers and rummage through appers. All the time doing and never living. And then the one moment, the one day the world is told to rest, it just keeps on moving. We all need rest, Savannah."
"You're telling me."
She looked back at me, not seeming to remember. "You look kind of that way. Like you need some rest."
"You said the same thing yesterday. I didn't realize how bad I was looking until you informed me."
She chuckled, causing her belly to move with her. "Ooh, I'm sorry baby. I didn't meant that you look bad like you were ugly or something. It's a furrowed brow. It's a heaviness of the eyes. It's seeing the weight someone carries by the mere look in their eyes. But it doesn't have to be that way."
"You aren't going to try to sell me some Anthony Robbins tape series are you?"
"Who's Anthony Robbins?"
"Good."
"No, I don't have anything to sell. Life isn't about selling and buying. It's about knowing and doing. And I'm not talking about the twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week doing. I'm talking about the heart knowing and the life doing."
I leaned my elbows on the step behind me. My mind was so tired. And all of this was just making me more tired.
"I'm tired of doing."
"I see you've had all you take, my sweet Savannah." She rose from her side of the stoop and laid my empty plate neatly beside me. Then she picked up the half glass of tea to take it with her. I couldn't help but smile at her mature innocence. She seemed so wise, yet her eyes looked so young and vulnerable.
"I'm sure I'll see you soon," I assured us both.
She turned and headed to the corner of the house, stopping at the corner as she turned back around. "Being, Savannah! That's the word. Not doing, but just being baby."

The roses are in full bloom about now, just in case you haven't noticed. And they smell amazing. The magnolia's are also blooming and will take your breathe away if you'll take a moment to smell them too. I know, because I've been doing a lot more of that lately. Just being. Wonder if that seeming mess we're trying so hard to tidy up would be a wonderful place for God to handle if we'd get out of the way so He could? Wonder how much more our effectiveness would be in our "doing" if we could learn to "be?"

Let's try it some this next week. Let's let it be okay for the dishes to sit in the sink over night, if that means a walk around the block with our family. Let's spend some time sitting on the back porch not feeling like we have to hound heaven with anything, but instead let it wash over us like a gentle rain. And let's release that which we think only we can fix and give the Fixer of all things an opportunity to show up. He ain't always in a hurry. And sometimes He wants to eat half of our catfish. He likes fish, remember. But the company, ah, the company. Nothing better.

Can I muse on one moment longer? Do you know what happened after that morning of simply "being" in the company of the one who knows me best? When I got upstairs to get ready for that afternoon event, like fireworks, a new vision began to pop in my heart. It grew so intense that I had to go to my computer and get down all of the thoughts that were coming to me. That was when I knew that it's very likely much more is accomplished when I quiet my soul, open my heart, and listen to the rain of heaven...

Would love to hear your "being" moments in a week. So, if you want, come back here and share them with us.