A New Pace of Life
Time is a funny thing. It feels like it was just last week when I packed up my car and drove 10 hours to my new home here in Greensboro. But today, more than 2 months later, I woke up realizing that it’s almost Thanksgiving!! What?!? Time is flying!
I guess it is a good thing that it seems as though time is flying, they say time flies when you’re having fun right? But what if we’re not meant to fly through life? What if we were made to slow down and enjoy? To delight in God’s creation around us?
Don’t get me wrong here, I am having a blast, but I am also learning what it looks like to slow down. And by learning, I mean God is teaching me. And when God wants to teach me something, He brings it up time and time again in all areas of life (once is rarely enough with my stubborn self). From work, to class, to daily life, I feel a push to slow down.
Let’s start with work. I am working at a non-profit community center called Glenwood Together (GT), located in a relatively low-income area. We are open 3 days a week for people to come in, have a coffee and a snack, enjoy free Wi-Fi and computers and just relax, or get connected to various community resources. We also have a garden nearby that my co-worker Grace and I work in twice a week to grow fresh produce to have at the center. While we have some programming throughout the week/month, the main goal of GT is to be a living room for the community, to be a place where people feel comfortable and loved, a place for connection.
And what a great mission that is! But it also comes with some really slow days. Some days where only a couple of people stop by. It was those days that I struggled with, but it was also those days that the Lord used to show me the value of slowing down, and the importance of listening. Listening to the community, hearing what they truly need or want instead of coming in with a posture of thinking I know what they need. Because I don’t! But I do know how to listen, and that is what I will do.
By no coincidence at all, I also spent the past 7 weeks in class learning about the importance of slowing down. We just finished up our Creation Theology course (shoutout to Madison and Hawken), where we learned about God’s heart for creation and how this should impact our daily lives. Turns out, the Creator LOVES what He created, and He wants us to love it too. But I realized that it is hard to love someone or something if you don’t take the time to understand and appreciate it.
For me this was a big wake up call to slow down, to stop rushing through life. To linger in conversations and get to know people a little deeper, to take in my surroundings and appreciate their beauty and life, to eat slowly and enjoy every bite, to make space for rest and delight in the Lord.
And what a delight it has been! Turns out, slowing down doesn’t make me miss out on life, rather it allows me to have more life. Thanks to class, and work, and most importantly God, I have been able to experience a richer, deeper, more beautiful life. And I don’t plan to rush away from it.
With delight,
Allison McHenry