At a loss for words

Over the past few weeks I have had so many ideas, questions, comments and stories fill my mind but no time to actually sit down and pour them out!  However, tonight is the night.  Tonight I put off my homework for just a little bit longer and leave my phone in the other room so that I can rummage through some of this chaos bouncing around in my brain dying to stick to something a little more concrete. 

I find that my thoughts look a lot clearer outside of my brain and on paper (or computer screen) because I am able to step back and actually read them from a more objective perspective.  I am able to think, “Wow, that sounds stupid..” or “Okay, Cassidy, you might be over reacting…”  When something traumatic happens, I find that the best thing to do is to let your thoughts escape your brain so that they no longer torment you; they no longer run the show and you are able to dance freely in open space again. 

Recently, my thoughts have been my own worst enemy.  I have woken up hours before I should have and just laid in my bed letting my mind run away from me.  Sometimes, I do believe this is healthy and that our minds deserve a little break but too often do I get trapped in a web of false beliefs and made up realities.  I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to just live in my mind and be able to make up the world around me as I went, but that was a long time ago before I knew just how cruel the mind can be.  If I ate poison, I would get sick and eventually die.  This is how I see the mind- once we fill it with a little poison, it can spread and eventually take over your entire being.  I am realizing the importance of “taking thoughts captive” now, and just how hard it is to train the mind against what it has always been able to do. 

Thank God for answering when we cry out to Him, though!  I asked Him to help me not let my mind run away and to purify my thoughts and let me tell you… when the Lord provides, He provides and then some.  I still wake up super early, but instead of laying there I make myself some breakfast and sit in my “productive” chair and talk to Him.  I used to make this a priority  all the time but as do most things when one gets busy, it got pushed aside.  Anyways, I sit in my chair and I “have coffee with God.”  I cannot tell you how many “coffee dates” I have been on since moving to Nashville.  My goodness we are the red-light district for coffee! So often do I sit for 30 min to an hour with a friend and catch up.  Coffee dates are fun because there is not expectation to have a whole night planned or spending alot of money or even wondering if it is a “real date.”  It’s comfortable.  I realized that I have had coffee with just about everyone but the One person with whom I feel the most comfortable and who needs to be caught up on a lot, God. 

So, every morning God and I have a coffee date and when my mind trails off I try to bring it back by doing what Nouwen suggests in Life of the Beloved, repeating St. Francis’s prayer or a Psalm or even the Lord’s supper. 

This post has gone so far from what I was expecting but that is the beauty of letting your thoughts escape because only when I free them do I understand what they actually wanted to say.