You can use whatever term you want: besetting sin, shadow side, strength and weakness. The very thing that makes you you, that makes you great, that makes you different from everyone else is also the thing that, unchecked, will ruin you. For me, it’s lust for life. It’s energy, curiosity, hunger.

Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good-enough, in search of can’t-live-without.

I’m learning, though, that the God who loves me isn’t just looking for apologies and report cards. He wants me to bring the vinegar so that I can taste the oil. He has all the time in the world to sit with me and sift through my fears and feelings and failings. That’s what prayer is. That’s what love is.

Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes just when you think it never will.

What would our lives be like if our days were studded by tiny, completely unproductive, silly, nonstrategic, wild and beautiful five-minute breaks, reminders that our days are for loving and learning and laughing, not for pushing and planning, reminders that it’s all about the heart, not the hustle?

Stop. Right now. Remake your life from the inside out.

I want to celebrate in the face of despair, dance when all we see on the horizon is doom.

Maybe it is God calling a big cosmic time out on me; giving me a chance at a new way of living. This is what I know. I have always been a more is more person and something shifted in me this summer. Something inside me said, “No more!” No more pushing and rushing. No more cold pizza at midnight. No more flights. No more books. No more house-guests. No more all of these things. Even things I love. Things I long for. Things that make me happy. No More. Only less. Less of everything.

My impulse is always toward work, pushing, guilt, rushing. But what restores me, what allows me to interact well with my family, what allows me to get good writing done, is almost always the opposite. And I’m finding that when I practice things like rest, grace, peace, prayer, self-care and slowness, the work gets done just the same. Well, just the same except less crying and less apologizing to my family. I’ll take it.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and look back and realize that the best thing about me was I was organized.