Aware

the REST of the week🌱

Do you ever get stumped for a moment when someone asks what you had for lunch?

Have you ever pulled into a parking place and realized you don’t remember anything about the drive? In fact, you don’t even remember driving, but here you are.

Maybe it’s washing the dishes or performing a task on the job where you get to the end and realize your mind was somewhere else and you don’t remember going through the motions.

What causes that?

And then there are the times when you’re hyper aware. Some secret joy guilds the ordinary world around you and you notice everything. Or, maybe it’s a private disappointment that weighs heavy like an internal backpack, sharpening your awareness with a different lens.

But no one knows. No one is aware—unless you tell them.

Last week, one of my nieces asked to speak privately with her mama, “where no one else can hear,” she said. Once alone, she unloaded the fear that she had cancer.

My sister, a nurse, did a careful assessment and was able to explain what was going on and assure her that she did not, in fact, have cancer.

Her response? Sheer joy and repeating over and over, “I’m so relieved, I’m so relieved, I’m so relieved.”

Who would have ever guessed that this little girl, full of energy and life, had been carrying around such a scary thought.

What if she’d never asked?

How many of us are walking around, right now, with some unspoken burden?

When Daniel was around five years old, he spiked a fever and had to stay home from an event. I layered blankets on the kitchen floor so he could rest near me while I cleaned up.

As I washed the dishes, a thought came to mind that I should go over and ask him how he felt. It was one of those thoughts that come like an external calling, like a quiet voice not your own.

Daniel was lying only ten feet away from me, in plain view, so my reply thought was automatic: “let me just finish up these dishes.”

But the impression pushed back, so strong that I dropped the plate in my hand back into the soapy water and walked over. This was about being beside him and looking him in the eye.

“Honey, are you OK?” I asked.

He looked up at me and his lips trembled.

“I’m afraid I’m going to die,” he said, tears slipping down his cheeks.

I hugged him, overwhelmed by the realization that he had been lying there suffering and I had been completely unaware of it. I also felt immense gratitude to God for prompting me to check in with him.

How do we rest from those heavy, inside burdens?

Maybe it starts with recognizing them ourselves and maybe it helps to share them with someone we trust.

And whether we’re aware of it or not, God is ever aware of us.nknown song writer of Psalm 115 compares God with idols—those false gods that don’t deliver what we really

The song writer of Psalm 115 describes them as having eyes, but not seeing, having ears but not hearing… as contrasted to God who “has been mindful of us,” (Psalm 115:12).

May you rest in the security of knowing you are seen and heard wherever you are right now.

Until next Friday,

Alicia