Overcome
the REST of the week #78
It’s the rest of the week and I can’t help but wish there were a pause button we could press for the planet.
What helps you navigate darkness, forebodings, or looming obstacles?
What captures your attention so completely that you are drawn out of yourself, where your senses carry you into a place of wonder beyond what you can explain—and while you still are very much aware of the challenges here and now, they do not weigh you down—and you feel yourself lighter and able to carry on?
Have you experienced this?
I have been pecking around on my keyboard, searching for words that might draw you into the glory I felt as I walked through the peaking colors of Autumn under an evening sky, alive and glowing like an ember.
The words evade me and perhaps this is just as well. I suspect wonder is something to be experienced, not explained.
Google says that wonder is:
a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.
Wonder is a feeling. It catches us off guard.
I remember exactly where I was on the road when the sheer glory of all that beauty overcame me, absorbing my troubled ruminations of the moment.
I hid the experience in my heart, memorizing the feeling in hopes that I might be able to find my way back to that moment again and again—and to stay awake and open to the evidence of Love, right here, right now.
What inspires a sense of wonder in you?
the unexpected turn of a phrase in a poem?
that one chord that sings out from a line of music?
the silhouette of a bird surfing invisible waves in an ocean of sky? The playfulness of an otter? The solemnity of an elephant?
the movement of a tiny human yet to be born?
the infectious laugh of a loved one experiencing a moment of joy?
the miracle of a desired ending?
an unexpected peace in the process?
a golazo?
realizing you are suspended between heaven and earth in a piece of metal going 500 miles per hour? And feeling safe as you observe the landscape below?
the structure of a bridge connecting two sides of a chasm? Or a tunnel under the sea?
The Apostle Paul advised the divided community of early Christians in Rome to:
…not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21 NIV)
Perhaps opening ourselves to wonder and being overcome by good is a great starting place.
May wonder surprise you and may you rest in all that is good.
Alicia