Writings of a Beholder 🌿 10.13.23
On silent retreating & letting what you seek find you
On Silent Retreating & Letting What You Seek Find You
Last weekend, my husband and I — along with about 13 other people — traveled to The Hermitage Retreat Center in Three Rivers, MI for a guided silent retreat weekend. For almost 48 hours, we ventured into silence together, dropping all expectations other than to encounter the Holy Spirit in one way or another.
As we sat around the table Friday evening, eating our last speaking meal until Sunday afternoon, it struck me how each of us arrived carrying different burdens. As we ate, we went around the table sharing how we were coming to retreat, and I realized that our humanity — such a broken, beautiful, heavy thing — connected us deeply. Our quivering voices and burdensome stories were evidence enough that silence would be a welcome friend, companioning us all uniquely.
That evening, as my spiritual director sent us all into silence for the remainder of the weekend, I felt my hurried and harried heart slowly find its rest as the sacred silence greeted me like a healing salve for my weary soul. Going to bed that night, I reflected on last year’s silent retreat and how I arrived very differently than I arrived this year.
Last year, I arrived searching and seeking, packing everything I could think of into my backpack which I would proceed to carry with me throughout the wooded trails within the 62 acres of rolling land that makes up The Hermitage. I arrived expecting an experience, looking for clues of the Holy Spirit moving and speaking, and hungry for answers and direction. That backpacked woman didn’t know it yet, but she was getting ready to embark on an intensive healing journey that would lead to brokenness and eventually, freedom.
This year, I arrived tired.
I arrived worn out and weary from a full schedule.
I arrived overwhelmed and wound up tight, my soul feeling knotted up and ragged from a season full of change and transitions. My trauma had found a place to rest and heal, and I arrived a bit more whole but worn out from learning how to be in the world again as someone I actually loved and accepted.
Because of my weariness, I also came open and ready to receive whatever the weekend held for me. My spiritual director’s invitation for the weekend to release and let go felt holy and timely because what I ended up releasing were my tightly clenched fists and false sense of control.
I came looking for water, searching for refreshment, and what I found is a God Who finds me — beholds me — when I’m too weary to come to the well and drink myself. I encountered the God Who, in His kindness and in understanding what it feels like to be a tired human, brings the water from the well to me.
He didn’t have to, He chose to. Because that’s the nature of His gentle heart.
Throughout the weekend as I walked the trails and the prayer labyrinths, watercolor painted for the first time since grade school art class, and read book after book while drinking cup of hot tea after cup of hot tea, I clung to a breath prayer offered by my spiritual director to ground and center me.
Inhale: What you seek.
Exhale: Also seeks you.
Inhale: Rest.
Exhale: And let it find you.
I left my backpack in my room each time I ventured out, which felt symbolic of the person I’m becoming, and practiced living freely and lightly. I practiced the art of being rather than doing, waiting and receiving rather than working, pausing rather than hurrying. I lingered longer when I felt invited to and listened to the Spirit’s nudges within as I let Him guide our weekend together.
My pace was slow, unhurried, and carefree as my Savior and me tended to my soul together, unwinding it ever so carefully.
As I responded to His invitation to live freely and lightly, He showed me His unforced rhythms of grace laced with gentleness and love and something sweet and healing like honey. I found my rest, my center, and remembered that Jesus doesn’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on me (Matthew 11:28-30) and it’s only when I forget Who holds me that fists and souls begin to clench tightly.
So now, here I stand after retreat at the threshold between who I was and who I’m becoming, learning how to release what’s heavy and unnecessary and replace it with spaces and things that give life, offer solitude and silence, and invite me to release what’s not mine to carry.
I’m learning here that releasing, this holy emptying, is a sacred thing that leads to a filling up of more God-glory, joy, and beauty.
The season of Autumn invites us to let go, and I intend to. But in the letting go I plan to pick up more time to watercolor, read, and take trail walks. I plan to let this empty space breathe in grace and find a slowness of pace. I plan to listen to my body and to the invitations I hear stirring instead of clinging to routine and an overloaded schedule.
I plan to let my being in the world as the Beloved be more than enough of an offering.
Selah.
With you on the journey,
Celia
*PS, I’m writing to you from the Indianapolis International Airport as my husband and I prepare to fly to NYC and then from NYC to London! We’ll be traveling throughout the UK for the next two weeks, which means that next week’s letter will be written to you from Scotland! Can’t wait to catch up on our travels then 😊
Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
Inhale: What you seek.
Exhale: Also seeks you.
Inhale: Rest.
Exhale: And let it find you.
*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
My Etsy Shop, The Beholding Co., is closed for the next few weeks as I travel abroad! It will reopen on October 26th.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. If you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
How might you create more space in your life for silence?
What is life-giving for you in this season and what is life-draining?
How might you create more space for what gives you life?
What invitations from the Spirit do you sense are stirring in this season of your life?
I'm so glad to get this update. And it's so cool that you guys are visiting Scotland this year, after my wife and I visited Ireland earlier. We may spend our next whole Soul Care session talking about that alone, lol.
I pray you two have a wonderful time and return refreshed, inspired and settled.