Life Should Be Made Up of Actions
I don’t often find quiet blocks of time reserved for thinking… about… things.
My days, hours, minutes, moments are filled to the brim with 3 sweet girls who LOVE, I repeat LUV to talk. They talk constantly. Ask questions, tell stories (very involved, dramatic stories that can be hard to follow), ask for explanations, sing songs, whistle… 2 out of the 3 can whistle!!! (twitching crazy-eye alert!) I feel like thinking for me occurs at the darnedest times. Often thoughts aren’t completed or finished, or are interrupted, you can imagine why (see above), but when a train of thought does actually arrive at the trainstation… it can be really exciting!
I was driving home the other day, and it struck me like a ray of sunshine that the quote I wrote in my senior yearbook as my life quote was, “Life should be made up of actions not reactions.” Wow! For a senior in high school that is just so… interesting. What 17 year old loves that quote so much that she writes it in her yearbook to be remembered by it. Me! I am the seventeen year old who does that. More on this later.
Over the past 6 years I have been learning a lot about reactivity. Relational reactivity that is. The opposite of reactivity would be receptivity. Do you tend to be a person who is often defensive and closed or are you flexible, resilient, and open? You can learn a lot about this in The Relational Soul, a book by my mentors and friends, Rich Plass and Jim Cofield. I am also reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly which is about vulnerability and wholeheartedness.
For as long as I can remember, I have been a fan of living life! I want to make life happen, not just react to it as it unfolds. Over time, I have learned that both happen. Life does happen, lots happens that I didn’t and wouldn’t choose but/and I want to be in a posture of receiving it as it does and making the best of it. I have learned to be more receptive, by the grace of God first and foremost, and also by doing the hard work of understanding more about my story and myself. As I have looked more closely at the limits and losses of my life I have begun to be able to receive circumstances and people differently. As I have taken the time to accept my story as it is myself as I am, I have become more open to the stories of others as they are. There are times when I’m feeling under pressure or stressed that I think about taking a deep breath, calming down, and considering what posture my heart is in, reactive or receptive? It’s not perfect, but I think all this learning and praying and accepting is having a positive effect!
So, this is where I was just so blessed. I graduated from high school in 2000! Yep! So close, and yet so far away! As I was taking a moment to consider my heart, reactive or receptive, it just hit me like a ton of bricks that God has been shaping me, building me, even specifically, with these very words Reactions/Reactive for 16 years. Drawing my heart to love him, to be loved by him. Teaching me that he is trustworthy. Teaching me about relationships. Calling me to calm and peace, stillness with him. Emotion literally welled up in my throat as I sat at the red light just as I got off the exit, and all I could do was smile.
He really is pursuing us with his particular love. He really will complete the good work he began in us, though I do not pretend to know what it is or how he will pull it all together.
Be encouraged. I challenge you to look for evidences of God’s particular love for you today. May God make us all more receptive to his love that renews us and invites us to really live!
