don’t do anything

I'm a doer. I can't sit still, and I usually don't sit at all for most of the day. Unless I am writing this blog, handling paperwork for Blue Nest or eating dinner with my family, I'm standing up. I drink my coffee standing up, eat my lunch while standing at the counter, stand to fold laundry, pace while talking on the phone. If I'm home, I'm usually not sitting.

Besides being in perpetual motion in the house, I have a laundry list of tasks that I want to complete every day. Go to UPS, go to the grocery store, wash the car, run by the bank, pick up the dry cleaning, go to a meeting in Greensboro, go to a meeting in Winston, always moving. Always doing something.

When I was going through my separation and divorce, I counseled with my priest. Words can't describe the respect and love I have for this man. He was "real". He didn't sugar coat anything, he listened with intent and he offered solid advice. He knows me, my girls and my ex-husband. He knows my parents. Talking to him was like talking to a very wise uncle or even, at times, like talking to my own father. If he gave me advice, I never questioned it. I did it. So, in one of our meetings as I was telling him, through sobs and tear-stained cheeks, about my stress and worry for the future of my children and my own future, he said three words that I still hear to this day:

"Don't do anything".

He told me that this was a time in my life that I needed to be still. Stay home, he said. Read, he said. Breathe, he said.

So, I did. I spent the next couple of weeks in my home. I would take my older girls to elementary school and my youngest to preschool in the morning and then I would go home and just be. I had some therapeutic crying sessions but I also sat down to fold piles of laundry, I peacefully organized cabinets and drawers, hung pictures and cleaned toilets while listening to Norah Jones, MercyMe, Hillsong UNITED. I sat to drink my coffee and to eat my lunch. I also breathed. And, I read. I read so very many books that first year, maybe close to a dozen? I prayed.

Little by little, my brow softened. My chest didn't hurt so much. I didn't cry nearly as hard or nearly as often. I started to have more clarity about my new life, my children's new lives. I felt more peaceful.

So, on days like today, when I feel like the walls are closing in and I just can't do it all, I remember the words of my wonderful spiritual Father. "Don't do anything". And, somehow, when I don't do anything I feel like I am able to do everything.