Slow Down… and Be Still

Three years ago, I had some health problems that required me to slow waaaaaay down, in terms of my capacity to do all the things. My cardiologist basically forbid be to keep pushing through, and I had to unlearn 50 years of how I do all the things. After almost a year of declining health, I had open heart surgery, then I recovered (also, very slowly), and about 6 months ago or so I thought I’d finally reached a “new normal”, where I had good boundaries about how and when I worked and rested. I was also feeling pretty good about my emotional bandwidth, the ways I was dealing with trauma and stress, and all the rest. (I literally just wrote a post about this on August 1st).

And then…

August was a DOOZY of a month, with getting our daughter ready to head to college ten hours away, regular and extra projects happening for work and our brick and mortar shop, and of course making the actual said ten hour trip to Texas. I found out I had an infection the afternoon before we left for TX, and while I was able to get antibiotics for it, I struggled a bit the whole way there and while we were in TX. On our last day, when we were heading home, I realized my heart was struggling, with high heart rate and a-fib.

That was two weeks ago, and I’ve been in a-fib almost continuously since then. I’ll spare you the details of what we’re (the doctors and me) are trying to do to fix this, but suffice it to say, it’s not working very well. I’m once again slowing waaaaaay down, and my capacity for work is about 4-5 hours each day, with not much left for family, home or anything else. I’m resting a lot, and we’ve been making decisions about a future that looks slower than expected.

ALL that to say, I’m ok. I’m looking forward to some of the changes we’re making, even if it’s a little bittersweet. My ultimate goal for the last few years has been to transition to more online work, and reduce the physical products area of my business, so that eventually I’m able to work from “home”…anywhere, anytime I have a wi-fi connection – with an idea that Allan and I might want to travel more as empty nesters!

The biggest change is that we’ll be closing our brick and mortar shop. That will be a signficant undertaking, and requires some work at home, and at my mother’s home to accommodate all the office needs and crafting needs. My mom doesn’t want to let go of the crafting (and I’m not totally ready to do that either), and I need more space than a corner in the basement. And we have a LOT of inventory that needs to be sold, along with furnishings and all the things we’ve accumulated in four years. (If you’re local, come see us – everything is 50% off!)

As I’ve been mulling over all this the last couple of weeks, I’ve had two helpful visuals. First is kind of a silly one from my favorite movie, The Sound of Music. There’s a scene near the end, after the family has given their last concert and run away to the abbey to hide from the Nazis. Those same Nazis were right behind them, and are standing at the gate of the abbey, demanding to be let in. The nuns are scurrying this way and that, and one of the nuns heads to open the gate. She’s moving fast, and Mother Superior says, “slowly… slowly”… and the sweet nun immediately corrects her movements and SLOWLY glides her way to the gate.

She gives a small smile to the men outside while slooooowly opening the lock. They barrel past her once she gets it open, but that moment of watching her self-correct and move in a non-demanding way – it’s an image I think about multiple times of day. I’m slowing my energies, whether it’s physical or mental, and working once again to re-train my brain and body to react and move differently.

And the second visual is from scripture and God’s voice. He told me for two years after my surgery to “be still”, and I thought I had done a pretty decent job of doing that, mostly, kinda.. (with some amount of complaining, if I’m honest). As I work through this newest glitch, I recognize that I may not have done the “be still” thing quite as well as I should have, or in the way maybe God wanted me to. I don’t mean to say He’s causing health problems so I’ll figure it out, but I will say He is definitely using it to help me hear his voice.

So. I’m moving slowly… and working on more of the “be still” characteristics again. Ultimately, God is in control of ALL of it. My health, my business, my family, my relationships, my worries and concerns, my hopes and my fears. HE will be the one to direct this path I’m on, and I’m going to continue to walk slowly and listen for where (if) I’m supposed to step up. I have a feeling I’ll be in “be still” mode for awhile, almost like a toddler who needs another time-out or two to learn the lessons her father is teaching her.

And I’m ok with that.