How to Start a New School Year and Savor Summer’s Ease {Free Printable}

by | Aug 1, 2017 | Rhythms of Rest

There is one thing I can’t do without on vacation. One thing forgotten will evoke tears and heaviness of heart. Forget and I may decide to turn around and go back home.

Can you guess what it is?

My camera. And not the one built into my phone.

My trusty Canon Rebel XT isn’t fancy but it does some good work toward remembering who I am while looking through the lens and into the bowels of creation. Practice attentiveness and become a seer of the contrasts God creates.

Because the beauty of life abides not in our perfectly framed moments but in the contrasts of our imperfections. Of dark resting beside light and highlighted for others to notice. Yeah, redemption, that’s where real beauty resides.

Bend down, look through the lens of life and frame the details while lingering long in the exhale. Pause and exhale all the worries left behind in your closet, on the counter, and in your wallet. Become a seer of God’s fingerprints on creation and in your everyday, walking around life.

Notice how the radiance of the sun turns a flat grey sea into a moving kaleidoscope of chameleon color, shifting from blue to green to turquoise and purple.

See that one pink bud bobbing on the end of a thorny stem? Notice how it arcs over brambles and centers right down the center of your walking path? Maybe those seemingly ill-placed petals bear a message instead of creating a nuisance to brush away. “Look! I made this one in your favorite shade of pink.”

What we need more than reinventing ourselves is recalibrating the heart toward God’s invitation; a release from heaviness into Light and abundance.

Rest in God and re-establish the truth about who you are. Listen and learn how he is strategically placing you in this world to make a unique difference.

Let’s transition from simply living to living simply. Because life is more beautifully captured when the heart and mind are uncluttered.

Make the details on your to-do list a big deal and miss the details of his love in the hidden places. Stop in an alcove, a side street, on a deserted stretch of pavement overlooking a valley and wonder about wandering for the love of God. What would it cost you?

What does it cost to carry on without noticing God’s presence in the details?

Stand under a leafy canopy as a cloud bursts open and remember how it feels to be loved, protected and held while you wait for the storm to pass. For God makes meaning from messes that seem meaningless.

How can we start a new school year and still savor summer’s ease and playfulness?

Practice the pause. Take the risk to rest and the aperture of your understanding widens to a big, beautiful landscape of God’s love and faithfulness. Remember what it means to be a child again. Your Father sees and He cares about what you care about.

Extravagant wastefulness with time might prove the most productive thing you choose for yourself.

Don’t want to make creating rhythms of rest a resolution you quickly break? Join the Sabbath Society community for weekly encouragement to persevere in pausing from work. Subscribe here. And download this printable August calendar to hang in a prominent place — prompts from Chapter 8 in Rhythms of Rest that will help you persevere in finding the spirit of Sabbath in your busy world.

 

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6 Comments

  1. Joanne Viola

    I am so grateful to not have missed this post as it is truth filled and was much needed. Shelly, thank you for continually pointing us to rest in God, to seek Him in the pause. You have blessed me with your words today. Thank you! And blessings to you!

  2. LuAnn Nystrom

    I think the title is too limiting for these beautiful words. We are all blessed to look through your lens!
    How to Restart Every Day (live every hour) and Savor The Length of Your Days. Maybe a little too wordy… 🙂

  3. Lynn D. Morrissey

    Good morning, Shelly. You were very strong on my heart when I awoke this morning, and now here you are! So truly lovely, Shelly–your artistry in words and images at their best! Such a beautiful post. Honestly, you had me guessing, with your “one thing” vacation thing. What would make you that sad? I couldn’t imagine. And I must tell you, that your “thing” wouldn’t be mine. I’m abysmal at taking photos. I never had the knack–probably because I wore glasses and they got in the way, for one thing. And even now, with contacts, I don’t focus all that well. I see in other ways, painting pictures with words (and you do that too so beautifully). But I do take time to pause and see and etch the image in memory, and I like to memorialize images in my journal. The point of this post for me in how it struck me is not just to pause, but to remember. You do that every single time you pick your Canon and your pen. And you also reflect. I think we can see, but really not see–remember, but really not remember. It’s in the reflection that we make sense of images, words, and experiences and in how God is speaking to us through them. And, now full-circle to your Sabbath point, if we reflect deeply, we need deep time in which to do it–the pregnant pause of Sabbath, the pause that is full and life-giving and bursting with God. Thank you for helping me take time to rest, to reflect, and to see the chiaroscuro play that God puts in our path every moment of every day. I love this post! And now, I want to go to Cornwall. It’s gorgeous. I’m so glad that you had such a meaningful, restful Holiday.
    Love,
    Lynn
    P.S. Mike did buy me an Android for Scotland, and for me, it worked! I was really surprised I could handle even that. 🙂 I was amazed at some of the images I was able to capture on my little phone–of rugged crags and rolling sea, of that pristine island ringed in rainbows. (Please go to Iona!) Admittedly, I am glad I had a physical way to capture them. And our Sheridan is just like you, toting a real camera and all its accoutrements wherever she goes.

  4. Dea

    This post is so quotable. The way the truths come one and then another remind me of the sea and how it sends the waves to the shore coming in, receding and then offering another. One of them that I loved is this: “Because the beauty of life abides not in our perfectly framed moments but in the contrasts of our imperfections. Of dark resting beside light and highlighted for others to notice. Yeah, redemption, that’s where real beauty resides.” There is a deep truth in those words and sentences strung together. They will sit with me all day. And I love the calendar. Today’s quote from Mark Buchanan makes me want to go get my girls and spend the day with them in full throttle play mode. They lead me often to Sabbath and for that I am grateful! Hey! And I’m glad you didn’t forget your camera! Photos are beautiful!

  5. Nancy Ruegg

    SO much eloquent wisdom here, Shelly. I found myself breathing AMEN and AMEN as I read. These gems shone especially bright for me: 1) “Become a seer of God’s fingerprints on creation and in your everyday, walking around life.” I am (slowly!) learning the habit of attentiveness. Such delight to discover evidence of God around me! 2) “Listen and learn how he is strategically placing you in this world to make a unique difference.” Thank you for that affirmation, Shelly. Amidst the ordinary tasks of ordinary days I can easily lose sight of the potential for influence wherever I go. 3) “God makes meaning from messes that seem meaningless.” What a glorious promise to remember when injustice occurs or events don’t make sense. 4) “Practice the pause.” Another habit I’m learning, in which I’m finding great delight! 5) “Extravagant wastefulness with time might prove the most productive thing you choose for yourself.” Thank you for your voice of truth and reason, urging us to get off the hamster wheel of constant running. MUCH is accomplished when we rest and refresh. You, Shelly, are a refreshing light against the darkness of daily burdens, over-achieving, and self-induced stress!

  6. Katie

    Many thanks for these beautiful images and edifying words.
    Gratefully,
    Katie

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