Empty

I think sometimes the greatest thing that can happen to you is to have your life taken away. 

No, I don't mean that you should die. I mean that you should be sidelined for awhile, forced to stop, forced to no longer do the things that you've filled your life with. 

When you get this blessed opportunity, two things happen: first, you get to reevaluate your life, what makes it worth living, what you really think of it and second, you get to understand the ways that you've filled it, with what, and for what reasons. 

I have had more medical procedures in the past few years than most folks have in a lifetime. I am right now recovering from yet another one (can we stop this already?). And when I talk to others about what recovery looks like, everyone says the same thing - oh, I'd love to have time to do nothing. Or I'd love to have more time to read. Or it'd be great to finally get some time to catch up on that craft/project/whatever that I never seem to have the energy for. 

As though recovering from major surgery is a time known for its renewal of energy. 

The truth is that given this amount of time and space, most persons will squander it away by vegging out in front of the television and finding some new show to binge. 

Right now, you're laughing because actually, that does sound like you. 

And then one day, you wake up, and it's time to get back to the life you once new, back to the grind, back to the schedule, and you feel like you missed your chance at something important. Because you did. 

You know what I am most likely to do in the acute recovery period, when my life is limited and I cannot do the things that I normally would do on a given day? 

Nothing. I am most likely to do nothing. 

I am most likely to go about my day in relative silence, not filling the space with anything in particular. Like sitting in a waiting room, I am content to do nothing for a season. 

It feels like a waste, I think, to many. Such a good time to read a book or work a jigsaw puzzle or share more cuddles with my dog (okay, maybe I'm guilty of that one). But what I find is that these things that I enjoy doing add depth to the life that I am living, but if they are my life, they don't have the same type of joy and restoration associated with them. 

They feel like pass-times. Like busy work. Like things I am doing just to fill the space. 

And what I really want in these seasons of slowness is to feel the space. To feel it acutely. To have that emptiness hanging over me. There's value in feeling what your existence is like before you fill it up with stuff. 

It helps you to understand the things that you're filling it with. 

Are they really adding meaning and depth and significance to your life? Or are they just passing the time? Are you getting the things out of your life that you really want? Are the things you want even worth wanting? Would your life be any richer right now if you were doing that thing that you always do but that you temporarily can't? 

There's no better time to evaluate the way you're living than when you can't live that way. There's no better time to take a good look at your life than when you can't live it the way you want. 

If you are given the blessing of your life again...what would you do with it?