summer's wash

A haven of repose. Those are the best words I can think of to describe my summer. Though I have not been idle, the rest this summer is bringing is overwhelmingly marvelous. My mind has been at ease, not fretting over projects or desperately trying to remember what I have to do tonight. The end of the school year was a time of flurried farewells and dizzying amounts of work that poured a burdensome cloak of fatigue about me.

Of course it isn't perfect, there are troubles and small worries that must be prayed over and fought. Yet these seem unimportant and surmountable in the glaze of the summer sun.

In an inexplicable way, I feel as though I am learning so much. I haven't really a clue as to what it is that I am learning, but I feel the gears turning and the thoughts being fashioned by greater hands than my own. It is the first summer that has not been one of drifting, but one of drawing near to Him. He helped me, kept me going through the year, and now has let me fall back into His hands and rest, rejuvenate, prepare for what is ahead. I am grateful for this repose. My sweat is drying, my face is being washed, my muscles are healing and my energy is storing up for the things I will have to do this next school year: not only school responsibilities, but people responsibilities.

I am socially secluded here at home, seeing mostly my family and a few old friends made of the dearest stuff. At school, I am socially bombarded, surrounded, immersed. There are many people that God has called me to care for, to support and listen to. Here, I am left to wander amongst familiarity and comfort. I know that my comfort will not last long, so I savor it as I would a good piece of dark chocolate. God will spring me right out of my comfortableness and into the introvert's exhaustive insanity of meeting new people all over. My rest has its' purpose. Even Jesus withdrew from the crowd to pray and rest.

{Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.}
Ada Louise Huxtable