Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Hi lovely people!
The pace of life has been on my heart recently because personally, I’ve been screaming through mine like a truck driver on the highway with road rage. AKA: Fast and stressed.
I’ve always filled my schedule to the brim. In high school, I signed up for every extracurricular, sport, club, and class I could make time for. And despite having less written on my schedule, I’ve never felt more stretched than I do these days.
Outside of work, my days are filled. Nathan and I are doing 75 Hard right now, so fitting two 45 minute workouts in every day is a challenge. Not to mention the 10 pages of reading each day too. Then I have chores. Anyone else shocked at how many decades you spend in the grocery store?? It feels like I fold one load of laundry and another pops up in its place. And don’t get me started on vacuuming.
Then there’s family and friends and church and writing…
Even as I’m writing this, I’m in between folding laundry loads, trying to get them folded before the next week.
Slowing down doesn’t just feel like a challenge for me, some days it feels like an impossibility. I can’t just stop cleaning the house. I can’t just stop working. I can’t just ghost all my relationships.
I don’t want to race through life. But how do I pump the brakes when it feels like things won’t get done unless I do them?
Running… Where?
Lately, I’ve been asking myself, “I feel the need to run – but where am I going?”
I think a large motivator for the urgency I feel is a fear of falling behind.
Almost everyone in my life says “I’m ahead” – whatever that means. I got married young. I’m in a job I love. I guess for those reasons you could say I did a few things younger than the average.
BUT – I still don’t know what God wants to do with me. And that stresses me out.
I want to know where this blog will go, if anywhere. I want to know how I can grow His kingdom, so I can start. I desire direction for His master plan. Not just the steps on the way, like serving in church or writing blogs like these. I want to know the big picture.
When people ask me, “What’s your dream?” I want to give one answer. Right now, I have 17+.
And I guess I see that as a problem. I want to put all my eggs in one basket, I want something consistent I can stick with. And right now it feels like I’m floating from one dream to another, riding waves of inspiration that never come to stay.
A dear friend and I talk about this often, because she feels like she’s behind all the time too. And as we were talking, we had a humbling moment: at 22, should we expect ourselves to have everything figured out?
When you take a step back, even 100 years compared to eternity feels like a water droplet compared to an ocean. We’re here for a breath, a moment.
Psalm 144:4 ~ “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”
James 4:14 ~ “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
If you want to feel real small, I encourage you to listen to this short meditation. Nathan showed it to me when we were dating, and every time I listen to it, the anxiety melts away.
Anyway, I think it’s so silly we put pressure on ourselves to pick a permanent path for our lives by the age of 21. Jesus didn’t start his ministry until he was 30. God directed Moses to free the Israelites at age 80. I could go on and on.
There is much more value in preparation than performance.
We want to rush into the meat of the story, but forget it takes years of forging our hearts to align with Jesus’s first. Being in the forging feels like falling behind. But pace was never meant to be compared.
It’s not just me. Lately, Nathan’s been at a bit of a crossroads with his career himself. We’ve discussed so many options over the years, but right now it’s a battle between becoming a paramedic and becoming a nurse. Both have pros and cons.
Early in our marriage, I hated not having direction. The back and forth killed me. I wanted Nathan to have a plan and to stick with it. We’d come to a “decision,” but it would quickly revert, and I would feel exhausted.
As hard as it is to not have a plan, I had to take a step back and extend some grace. Do I even know what I’m doing with my life? Why would I expect Nathan to?
Proverbs 16:9 says “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
Even when a plan is in place, we are not in control. I let go of that a long time ago. Part of getting married young is embracing growing together. Neither of us were settled in our careers or thriving in a nice house before we got married. We haven’t checked items off our bucket list yet. We haven’t achieved our biggest goals. We get to do those things together.
It’s so fulfilling to grow together, but calls for much grace.
One thing at a time.
A few weeks ago we had a work lunch, and my boss talked with us about how he’s reading a book about slowing down. It’s a Christian book with the opposite philosophy of Atomic Habits. Famous in the self help category, Atomic Habits insists on habit stacking – like listening to an audio book while you run on the treadmill.
I habit stack all. the. dang. time. Admittedly it does help with setting good habits and sticking with them. There is some wisdom to the concept – for example, I always forgot to take vitamins, so I tucked them in my nightstand where I keep my phone cord. Each night when I open my drawer to plug in my phone, I’m forced to see my vitamins, and I haven’t missed a day for a long time.
BUT – the multi-tasking mindset can spread like a greedy disease, and my boss made a really interesting suggestion at this work lunch. He said, “just do one thing at a time.”
When you’re working out, don’t listen to music or a sermon. Just work out.
When you’re weeding the garden, do just that.
When you’re cooking, keep the TV off.
It develops a comradery with silence. It quiets your mind from the constant seeking of entertainment and box-checking. It brings you back to the pace God made you for.
I thought that was super cool coming from my boss, of all people. Wouldn’t your boss want you to multitask and get work done as quickly as possible? Wouldn’t they be concerned about productivity first? I really appreciated his biblical approach to productivity – it really stuck with me.
It’s All Hebel
If you haven’t listened to that meditation yet, now would be a good time;)
At the end of the day, it’s all Hebel. Hebel in Hebrew means vapor, breath, or vanity. It’s the focus of the book of Ecclesiastes, when Solomon talks about how so much in life is chasing after wind – meaningless.
Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to keep up with the pace of another person’s stride. The laundry you’re folding will be rags one day. The house you clean will turn to dust. The job you work so hard for won’t last forever. The body you strengthen at the gym will die. The money you gather will inflate and deflate.
Yet one things remains past it all – and it’s a real relationship with God.
I’m not advocating for laziness or neglect. I’m advocating for perspective and prioritization. Keep the first things first. Check off your to-do list. Be productive.
But when you don’t get everything done, take a breath. It’s all Hebel anyway.
XOXO,
Annabelle