Solitude

This morning I woke up and the house was empty, as my roommate had taken off to have a sabbath day away. I'd been looking forward to having a day to rest, but waking up on the day of, I felt somewhat bereft and lost. I wandered into my living room unsure what to do with myself. Lots of chores popped into my mind, but I found that I wasn't sure how to just be. I immediately wanted to fill up the space with journaling or music or reading...all of which are good and restful things, but are all still doing and not simply being. So today was a bit of an experiment with solitude and learning how to be.

I sat on the couch and looked out the window for a while, ate breakfast, pulled out the guitar and played for a while, and read the first chapter of Barton's book Invitation to Solitude and Silence, then sat in silence for a while. Barton says that she thinks silence is one of the least experienced spiritual disciplines among modern evangelical Christians. She also says that desperation and desire are two things that drew her to seek God in the uncharted territory of solitude and quiet, away from the never-ending hum of people and activities and work. So true. In this season of my life, I am really longing for an intimacy with God that I don't have right now. I am also desperate for him to fill my soul with what I need to make it. My soul feels like a drowning person clutching frantically at the surface for air, like a starving person crawling, snatching, clawing. Daddy God, I want you. I need you. If that takes learning how to be alone with just you, how to practice the disciplines of solitude and silence, help me to learn.

"Here we sit our souls down and wait for that which comes from beyond ourselves. Here we give into desperation and desire until God comes to us and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves."