Issue # 16 - Learning to Tarry in a World of Hurry

And He walks with me, and He talks with me, 

And He tells me I am His own,

And the joy we share as we tarry there, 

None other has ever known.  

-- Chorus of Hymn, “I Come to the Garden”

This past spring, during a time of group spiritual direction, I felt a quiet beckoning -- a gentle invitation from God to spend time with Him.  The hymn “I Come to the Garden” started playing in my mind, particularly the line featuring the word “tarry.”  

Stay.  Linger.  Be with me, I could imagine Him saying to me softly.  

Yes, I answered in my heart, tearful, as I repented for how I spend my time.  I’m sorry I get caught up in the flurry and the hurry of the day, or, when I do have a moment, I turn to the distraction of the phone or a podcast instead of You.  Let’s tarry tomorrow.

The next day, despite good intentions, the morning raced by as I felt the to-do list breathing down my neck.  I said a quick prayer and rushed into the day.  Honestly, many days look much more like hurry, not tarry.    

Yet in His kindness, God waits very patiently and continues to call.  Over the summer, through books and talks, a recurring theme kept emerging:  deepening relational connection through learning how to be with Jesus.  

“What God wants is simply our presence, even if it feels like a waste of potentially productive time,” writes David G. Benner in his book, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery. “That is what friends do together -- they waste time with each other.  Simply being together is enough without expecting to ‘get something’ from the interaction. It should be no different with God.”

Sounds simple and lovely, to spend time with Jesus without an agenda.  But “a waste of potentially productive time”?  Clearly, Benner doesn’t live in Bergen County.  It also challenges my natural workaholic inclinations (and yet, I still manage to find time for distraction on my phone …) 

Eventually, God met me right in my scrolling.  While watching clips from the show about Jesus’ life, The Chosen, a scene between Jesus and the woman at the well had me tearing up.  I half-jokingly chalked it up to perimenopause.

And then, a few days later, it happened again with another clip.  As I watched Jesus gaze upon the person with deep compassion and kindness, fully seeing him in all his beauty and brokenness, my tears spoke:  “Jesus, I want to experience You looking at me like that, every day.”  To look at me with love, and not just to know that You love me, but all of me, even the parts I work so hard to distract and hide myself from … that I am Your beloved with every fiber of my being.  

This is where intimacy with God often begins -- growing in the awareness of His gaze upon us, and that gaze is very personal.  He sees me, little me.  When I tarry with Him, that awareness becomes an opportunity to attune to His love and allow His love to seep deeper into my heart.  In this midlife season, I feel the call to take all the knowledge and belief stored in my head about God and allow Him to knead the Truth of what it means to be His beloved child into every part of my heart and soul. In turn, I experience more fully who He is as my Father.  This transformational deepening is slow, quiet, and ordinary, taking shape only in a living relationship where both He and I show up.  It happens little by little, day by day. 

As the new school year began, I sensed His invitation again, delivered every morning through my younger son.  When he wakes up, he comes over to my bed for a hug.  Some days, he flings open the door with a cheery “Good morning!”  Other days, in a half-awake stupor, he climbs into my lap like a baby monkey and falls right back asleep in my arms.  

Once he settles into my lap, we ask how the other slept, and share a quiet snuggle.  Sometimes, I take his little face into my hands, look into his eyes, and ask him two questions I’ve often asked since he was very little, “Do you know I love you? Do you know you are my joy and delight?”  He usually nods vigorously, as if to say, “Of course I know.  Why do you keep asking me?”  

In those moments, Psalm 131:2 comes alive:  "Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”  Though long past nursing, my son still seeks that place of safety, comfort, and emotional nourishment.  Even as the pull of the morning rush tugs at me, I savor those few minutes with him.

 As I hold my son, the Lord gently reminds me that I need this kind of time with my Abba every single day.  He asks me, “Do you know I love you?  Do you know you are my joy and delight?”  Some days, I’m not sure I could nod as confidently as my son does.  Realizing how much I need to hear it every day, I hold my son tight and I imagine the two of us sitting together in God’s lap for a snuggle.  

“And the joy we share as we tarry there …”  

When I take the moment to be still and tarry, I grow aware of His presence, not just around me, but within me.  All it takes is saying “yes” to His invitation -- looking to Him, only to find Him tenderly looking back at me with love.

-Janice