Hey all, the WholeMama linkup is continuing right here. Today we’re writing on the word ‘be’. Link up with us at the bottom of this post!

This urge to just be flies by and at odds with my own common sense and lists of do and must and should. 

Be.

It’s like an invitation to relaxation and hereness, but then also a wandering through the cords of what it means to be in this life, right here and now. Wholeness intertwined. The life that includes the doing of all the things, the creating, the reading, the cleaning, the washing, the acknowledging of different hopes and dreams and needs than might be considered necessary. The combination of things required and things desired. 

Be.

But more about sitting in and amidst those longings and to-do’s, and less about accomplishing.

I want to read the day along to hear the voices of others who wonder at the same places of understanding I do. I want to spend time thinking and forming my own thoughts about it all as well. Because knowing the words I would say about what I think help me to be, and be whole.

I need to do things to feel whole, but on the flipside I also need to take a break from thinking all the thoughts sometimes. 

Sometimes I just need to be. 

Just being right now means:

– acknowledging my need for a nap (at 37 weeks pregnant, this becomes a siren call hard to ignore), and not being too miffed if I happen to take a long nap everyday during my toddlers’ naptime instead of accomplishing everything or anything. Because sometime just being means just sleeping. 

– allowing myself to watch the hilarious antics of my kids when they get caught up with a game in our inflateable pool. Actually enjoying them when they’re getting along and creating fun…not just when they’re raising cain and mayhem, havoc-like. Because sometimes just being means just enjoying the people God gave me. 

I need to leave the rest of whatever to be done a little later. 

I need to read fiction. 

I need chocolate (no wait that’s an all-the-time thing). 

I need to be in my house and outside of it. Visiting people and not. 

Doing things as they feel enjoyable, and not because I must. But then also doing things that I must and allowing a calm into the activity…a ‘just be-ing’ attention paying instead of helter skelter strive-for-all. 

(This seems to be the post where I make up words. I’m sorry, but also not.)

But the point is – instead of doing and striving constantly, sometimes the most whole thing I can do is to take a step back and allow my pace to slow to a pace of enjoyment instead of a gallop whenever I can. 

And, well, Whole Mamas, sometimes this “just being” thing meets me where I am and I can smile, but sometimes it feels like a leaf caught up in a wild wind, just out of reach and always elusive. 

But that’s ok. It’s ok. That’s part of the beauty of it. We embrace our lives and sometimes our lives outrun us and we’re left panting. 

Just be. It’s ok. It’s not always calm or pretty or joy-bells, but we’ll make it. 

I wanted to make sure this first post – after school starts for some and the days amp up to a run – leaves us with an invitation to still simply be in it. To accept our calm and wild lives as they are, confident and bold, faltering and timid. Our own feelings about  whatsoever at odds or not with anything. 

Just take a breath and rest in the idiosyncracies of life.

Just be.

Summer has the melodic thrill of slowness. The hot air and extra sunshine leave us basking in a radiant glow. That moment of pause a more natural consequence of the position of the globe and timing in the school year. 

But then comes fall with the rush and helter skelter. I feel it too even with just little ones. The time is ticking and plans are being made for the goal of this last 37 weeks. waiting. and now we rush. Ready or not, towards the end. 

But still. 

Be still. 

Just be. 

Our days are going by at the same rate and we can only trust. 

So take a pause or a run. 

Just be. 

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Link up with us here! Click on the frog :)

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Our #wholemama facebook group is gathering. I’ll be posting the word a few days early each week on Facebook and then again on Monday evening with the #wholemama hashtag, so make sure to join us!

Also next week I’ll be changing the time of this anchor post to Tuesday 8AM MST, just to give myself a little more leeway to my weekend.

I can’t wait to read all your lovely words!

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