Just Breathing

I know my word for 2010 was JOY, but as the year has progressed I have come to realize that I can't have joy without peace, and thus this year has seemed to become a continuation of last, but with a slight variation.  Last year I dubbed myself in "pursuit" of peace.  This year I have been struggling to wrap my brain around a major paradigm shift (for me) that seems to be beckoning me to accept that peace isn't necessarily something to be pursued, but rather something to be embraced.  The thing that stands in hindrance to my peace (of mind, heart, body, soul) is, when it really comes down to it, pursuit itself.  The pursuit of MORE of something.  More of this, more of that, more of... you name it.  I think if God has been trying to tell me anything this year it is that peace and joy require me embracing who I am, where I am, with what I have been given and (could it really be?) nothing more.

This is huge for me, because I am, after all, a first born perfectionist who has always been in pursuit of perfecting (or at least improving) SOMETHING.    I think it gives me a feeling of being in control of my my life.  Successful.  Fulfilled.  With it (cough, cough).  Recently I was struck by these lyrics from an Alli Rogers song;

"when I'm away from my source of peace
something fills that space in me
and it feels like
I don't need you"

My source of peace.  Wow.  That hit me like a ton of bricks.  Here I am pursuing peace and all that jazz, pursuing, pursuing, pursuing... something/one that lives in me.  Something/one that is WITHIN.  Something/one I merely need to embrace.  And the rest of it?  Well, the rest of it is what keeps me from embracing.  Keeps me moving, reaching, running.  The things that fill the spaces and take a stranglehold on me and keep me from just... breathing.

So that's what I'm working on.  Just... breathing.