Leaning Into Rest, Leaning into Him Part 1
By Lauren Hasson
I worked hard right up to the moment when I didn’t.
I opened this space up for the two of us to be together, a sequestered sabbatical to hear You and reconnect to myself in a new way. To write The Book, and enjoy the process. I gave myself a month of time to be away from the world and to enjoy my life with You in a new way.
I am ready for something new. Something I haven’t experienced before. I want to know what it’s like to live a completely supernatural lifestyle, pressing way past what I am able to do on my own. I am here to find a new way to live from my heart and spirit that has so much more room for expanse. I have been asking You to open up something completely unfamiliar so that we I can know you in a new way.
Starting this with you two weeks ago, I thought we would talk a lot and write a ton. I envisioned us holing up together and producing all sorts of chapters.
I didn’t picture this feeling of a wide expanse that seemed inaccessible. Non-productive days, You asked for “no outline”, and the pervasive waiting feels unbearable. The other day You told me that the book isn’t the point. This isn’t a space to fulfill the word that I’ve had from so many people about “My book”, “Write your book”, “Finish your book”. It has made me feel a weight of expectation for myself to produce. The first book on favor, its outlines, its ideas just wasn’t inspiring. It seemed like the logical answer to help people demystify who You are for them and what’s available.
When you started inspiring me with the gift of watching people emerge in real life because they had so much undeniable faith in who You are that they kept saying “YES”, that was inspiring. Watching Your hand on them as they stepped out into nothingness, but somehow kept walking. Their belief in You provided ground to move.
I didn’t see my own anxiety showing up in this space. I didn’t know how difficult the tension is to create room to just hang out with You and not be productive in this “writing retreat”. You have done so much for me about time and not being compressed by its natural-realm restrictions. Now the desire for progress is coming up to test those restrictions you have been freeing me from. “What happens when relatives come in three weeks, the plans for the wedding take shape at our house? How do I carve out more time when the demands of my life press in?” These are the questions that I am giving to you to hold, so that my soul doesn’t move into the need to perform.
As you sat with me in this process, revealing these thoughts of doubt, frustration, insignificance, I have felt very real pain. What if what I’m hoping for doesn’t materialize? Writing it, it sounds ridiculous, but feeling it is excruciating
Sitting, staring at my anxiety, you spoke to me, “ You’re used to initiating. I’m asking you not to.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand” I wondered.
“I have made you bold, initiating is natural to you. Your heart must also know that I am initiating first for you, I show up for you, just you, because I enjoy you.”
I felt something inside breaking when You said that. I sought to find where this would have started. The memory of being young came back, with every emotion of loneliness and longing for connection with anyone. My large family of six children always had so much happening, that it seemed impossible to feel lonely; however, my two sisters older than me were close, my brother did his own thing, and I was a decade older than the youngest two. Living out in the outskirts of the city had its beauty of hills, but left me without friends. My solace was a horse they bought for the family who quickly became mine. From sixth grade, those hills became my solace to ride and discover a world outside my house. When I hit high school, I realized that no one was going to “come and discover me”, help me to come alive. I realized that if something was going to happen, I had to make it happen myself.
I created my life. I became engaged in school. I found friends. I initiated so that emotionally I could survive.
I was surprised that this memory was brought up to me, as I have done so much work around self-reliance and trust in the past. Frustration was mounting, “Why do we have to go back there, again!!” “Because you don’t believe that if you don’t initiate, life will still unfold for you. I want to initiate. The pain I’m healing is part of this process for you, the tension of waiting for Me is opening up the places you don’t believe in Me, yet.”
A deep sadness of years of waiting, disappointments rolled out before me, pouring out in sobs. I felt Jesus sitting right next to me, taking it all in, holding me, comforting me in my vulnerability. Seeing me. Not skipping past me for what was more important. Significance. Young and significant. Sought after. Desired.
The book was now not the main thing. He was the main thing. Time to understand who we are together and to fall back in love with Jesus Himself became the main thing. Not the Father, not Holy Spirit... my friend Jesus.
Each day, He inspired me with something different and small. Let’s clean out this part of your closet. Let’s enjoy cutting this pineapple and the way the knife exposes the yellow fruit beneath. What do you want to cook for dinner? Now let’s eat it outside and watch the sunset. My rhythm became so slow it was astonishing. I was taking pleasure in creating order, beauty, feeling nourished by these small steps.
To be continued…