A Letter From Maine
Hello, dear friends.
I’m writing to you this morning from one of my favorite places — Portland, Maine. I’m here with my momma as we venture together on our very first girls’ trip. Yesterday was our first full day in coastal Maine, and we spent it road-tripping to Camden, awed in wide-eyed wonder at all the quaint, cozy New England towns we drove through along the way.
The day was full of Maine magic; sacred moments of laughter and beauty-soaking and lighthouse hunting and I loved every single moment of it. We’re in Portland for a few more days before heading back to Indiana, and I plan to savor every second until my feet are forced back onto that airplane.
My husband and I visited Maine for the first time last June, and I immediately fell in love with the wild, raw beauty of it. It quickly became a thin place for me — a sacred space where the veil between heaven and earth grows thin and God feels close.
Beauty lives within all things, I believe. Sometimes we find it in still, small fleeting moments of unexplainable gratitude. It can be found in the way the sun filters through the trees, the breeze that caresses your cheek, the sound of windchimes on a warm summer’s day, or in the eyes and voices of the people we love most. But sometimes, it’s found in places that make us feel utterly and completely at Home in our souls.
Maine is a place of deep, abiding wonder and beauty for me. It’s a place where I feel like I’m standing on the edge of eternity. Here, I’m home. Here, my soul breathes deeply, exhaling only to inhale sustaining grace.
Thank you, Jesus, for this thin place where joy lives and beauty expands so wide that it changes me, forms me, and heals me.
Last year, Maine’s invitation to me was to trust; to let go and let peace rule in my heart and mind, to let what I can’t control fall to the wayside, and to choose surrender as a pathway to unbridled joy and freedom.
This year, Maine’s invitation to me is to practice presence.
I came to Maine distracted and a bit restless, having spent a lot of time prior to leaving reflecting on the past and searching for answers and arrows for the future. But God’s invitation to me in this season is not to root myself in the past or place my hope in what the future may or may not hold, but to be fully immersed in what this moment holds.
I can’t predict what tomorrow will bring, or even the next few seconds in front of me. I can’t go back and change what is already past, even though sometimes, I want to. I can only be here, in the present, receiving what God has for me in this moment, trusting that my past is His and so is my present and my future.
This isn’t to say we can’t look back, can’t process the past, or allow it to inform our present. I’ve been practicing inviting God to sit in my past with me so that I can face it with Him and safely heal. And there’s nothing wrong with looking ahead either at times, planning wisely for the future, and dreaming openly with God.
But right now, here is the only place where I can be, and here is where God meets me.
And when anxiety hits me like a ton of bricks, knocking the breath from me for fear of what the future holds or doesn’t hold, or when the past comes to haunt me, filling me with shame and regret and sadness, I name it. I name it all in His presence, and then I allow myself to give thanks for the moment, thanks for the ability to hold it, and that split second of gratitude is the gap between the past and the future called the present, grounding me to God and myself.
The naming of hard, hurting things helps me release my grip on what I can’t change or control and the gratitude grounds me and opens me to what God has for me to receive right here, right now.
And before I know it, I name and release and give thanks and receive and that rhythmic way of abiding begins to take root in me. The beauty of the present comes together like stained glass fractals reflecting sunlight in my soul.
I breathe deep, let the coastal Maine air fill my lungs, and I exhale to receive His presence mixed with mercy, and a prayer bubbles up from my throat to my lips from a place deep inside me.
May Your Light fill me and flow from me.
Selah.
All is beauty.
All is grace.
And here is where it’s all embraced.
With you on the journey,
Celia
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
breathe in:
I will give thanks to, You, Lord.
breathe out:
With all my heart.
(adapted from Psalm 9:1)
*if you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, check out this blog post I wrote titled, How to Use Breath Prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
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
Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.
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. And if you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, hit reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
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):
What hard and hurting things need to be named today?
How might a practice of gratitude take root in you?
What spaces or places make your soul feel at Home in God?
I love your description of the thin spaces. Indeed, I have experienced more than a few of these myself. Times when God just overwhelms us with the beauty he has created. It is wonderful, no matter where we are, just slow down enjoy the sites and sounds around us, the gentle breeze, and just know he is sitting in the chair next to us!