labyrinth

today is a day of blessing.

i couldn't sleep last night. bryn woke up at 1am with growing pains and that was it- i basically tossed and turned the night away with various strange dream segments based on half realities. i worried and then prayed and then fell back to sleep on and on.
i have this problem sometimes. the- 2am everything in the world is horrible and stressful problem- so if i happen to be awakened anytime near 2am, i'm pretty much doomed. last night the flavor of stress was zoe going to visit her old school today. so the middle of the night the "what if's" started. what if she is totally overwhelmed? what if she freaks out? what if she says totally inappropriate things? what if either she's miserable or they're miserable and they decide they never want her to come back? what if i'm homeschooling her for the rest of my life? what if she loves it and wants to go back and i'm not ready for her to go back? and then i remembered: Come and i will give you rest.

i went on a womens retreat last summer. it was at Serenbe. beautiful, quiet, peaceful, farm-to-table dinning, saltwater swimming pool, down-comforters on the beds. there was a lot of time to just be, and hang out with other women. but i was in a really bad place. things with zoe were at there worst. she was struggling almost every minute to keep herself from falling apart, and pretty much, so was i. one morning with the steam rising over the fields we went out to do the labyrinth walk. i remember feeling very empty and needy. i remember feeling afraid to walk quietly for 30 minutes with myself- because my head felt so full and heavy. heavy emptiness is a bad feeling. when it was my turn to enter the labyrinth, i hesitated and wanted to leap over the little stones and run off into the woods. i didn't want to walk the path, i didn't feel still and reflective, i felt antsy and afraid. but like so many times in life - you just have to put one foot in front of the other and start- and so i did. for the first quarter it was just quieting- which was actually good. then it came to me- like the ancient truths of this ancient practice were speaking through this path. "come to me, you who are weary and i will give you rest." i'd heard this so many times before. but this time i heard it differently. this time i heard an invitation. Come. this time, i was really weary. this time i heard, i will give you rest, this time, i heard a promise. and like a mantra, the rest of my walk as i wove in and out toward and away from the center- the spot where we find God- i heard this over and over. come to me, you who are weary and i will give you rest. i wasn't alone. i wasn't afraid. the stillness was good. there was a promise. there was hope. and i wasn't quite so empty.

the labyrinth is so much like life- we have our moments, our epiphanies when we are at peace, when we are close to the heart of God, when we are connected with others- toward the center. and then we have our moments on the edge- far away-forgetting there is a peace- and most of the time we're out there or somewhere in the middle. but we're still on the path. we're still moving. and the path always brings us closer to the center.