Slow Down, Pause, Enjoy

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a planner. I write out list after list, schedule after schedule, and don’t adjust well to things that throw off my plan. Last night before I went to bed, I wrote out my plan for today, starting with waking up and working out and ending with babysitting and coming home and relaxing before bed. I wrote when I would go running, what coffee shop I would go to study at after my run, and when I would return home for lunch. I wrote out exactly what I would accomplish when I was at the coffee shop and what I would do when I arrived home after lunch, and it looked a little something like this:

I ended up waking up a little earlier than I anticipated, which was fine with me, and I headed out the door for my run a little more bundled up than I have been on my other runs now that fall is finally here. I drove the ten minutes to a nearby nature park, my new favorite place for Saturday runs. My workout for the day was two, fifteen minute runs, with a two-minute walk break in-between. I started down a path I hadn’t explored yet, settling into my pace, enjoying the brisk air and taking in the sight of the leaves finally starting to change color. The path took me winding through the woods, then out into the open where I followed the path of a stream, and back into the woods again. At just about the end of my first fifteen minutes, I got the worst side cramp. I pushed through the pain to the end of my fifteen minutes, figuring the pain would go away during my two-minute walk break. It didn’t. As the time neared for me to start my next fifteen-minute run, I prepared myself to push through the cramp for fifteen minutes. I’m competitive, even with myself, and don’t like to admit defeat. However, not even a minute later, I was forced to slow down and walk. I was frustrated at first, but as I walked, I began to think.

How many times in life do I just try to push through the pain, or the business, or the stress? I don’t like to slow down. I try and fit as much as can into my schedule and I am convinced I can do it all. In high school I played three varsity sports and I worked part-time. In undergrad, I played three varsity sports, took at least sixteen credits a semester, and worked part-time. Now, in graduate school, it’s killing me that my Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays aren’t filled with practices, games, or work, despite my nineteen credit course load.

And yet today on my run when I took a minute to slow down, stop, take out my headphones, and just observe the world around me, I was able to get so much more joy out of my Saturday morning adventure. I strayed off the main path, exploring some side trails, only to discover this quiet stream down one trail and a neat little clearing down another. I noticed natural tunnels created by the trees bending towards each other overhead, decorated by the falling red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves. I observed a family of six or seven deer grazing and then run across my path with more grace than I ever have when I’m running. It was so amazing to just take it all in and observe, without my mind going a million miles an hour thinking about all of the items on my to-do list for the day.

Path to the clearing I found

Three of the six or seven deer I saw while adventuring

I could have spent all day by this stream!

Just a casual morning run in one of the prettiest places here in Nashville, Edwin Warner Park

 

So maybe I didn’t get my full workout in, but what I did gain was so much more valuable. During this time when schoolwork is piling up and midterms are just three days away, I am so much more at peace than I have been the past few weeks. I am rested and blessed and so ready to take on my to-do list, but I am also ready to take some time every so often to slow down, stop, and just enjoy the world around me, and I challenge you to do the same too.

And I got to end my wonderful Saturday morning studying in City Limits Cafe with a warm cup of chai!

 

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

I’m currently sitting in Starbucks, reflecting on a thought that struck me yesterday during my Anatomy lab. As I was sitting in lab, surrounded by twelve cadavers, I was reminded of how blessed I am with the opportunity to explore the human body in such an intricate and intimate way. Each week, I spend at least two hours, and often more, learning about and exploring one of God’s greatest creations. And what an amazing creation it is. As I’ve been learning, there is no doubt in my mind that God quite deliberately made us the way we are. The human body is organized in some amazing ways, from the way some of our most vital organs, nerves, and blood supplies are protected by bones and muscles, to the way various muscles work together to make our body move in very specific ways. Before now, I never realized just how delicate a structure the human body is, and yet it endures so much. Looking at the human body, the muscles and bones we rely on to give us structure and movement are not as big as you might imagine, and yet they are the reason we are able to get out of bed in the morning, to run and jump, to move our bodies in the intricate ways we can. And sometimes this muscles are so small I can’t understand how they can do what they do, and yet they do it. Vital organs, nerves, and blood supplies are protected by muscles and fat and the spinal cord is encased in a fortress of bone, muscles, ligaments, and fat to ensure one of our command centers is adequately protected. Structures that are more exposed or susceptible to wear and tear are often larger or stronger to protect it from damage.

There are definitely times when I think this information is more stressful than amazing, but when I stop to think about it, I can’t help but think about Psalm 139:13-14, which states:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

When I’m in that lab, seeing all of the ways God has diligently worked to create an intricate structure that allows us to function each day, and how even our inner structures can vary so much from individual to individual, there is no doubt in my mind that a creative, loving God took the time to create me to be uniquely me. And when I think about that, all of my self-doubts and self-consciousness about the way I look fly out the window, and I am able to rest in the fact that I have been fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who loves me for who I uniquely am.