Noticing

Noticing

By Elisa Morgan

Fuchsia and tangerine clouds ribboning through indigo mountain silhouettes. Spectacular!

A joy-filled bark as my sweet Mia greets me at the door. Love!

Tangy odors wafting from the kitchen toward my dinner table. Yum!

Every single day we encounter some majestic revelation of our all-powerful and constantly-providing God. We can’t help but notice! It’s as if God is showing off and bending his being near for our applause. In response, our hearts leap with gratitude. Our spirits smile. We overflow.

I’m emerging from a season of muchness where I saw God pouring out in dramatic demonstrations of provision. My brother’s liver transplant after a nearly four-year wait. JOY!

The assignment to chair the board of a renowned seminary and the subsequent responsibility to help with the search for the next president. After a year of work, God’s choice was revealed and is now at the helm. PRAISE!

Two family upheavals involving illness, career change, relocation and more Yia Yia coverage of the grands. In it all, God was and is still working. GRATITUDE!

The past few months have been filled with big life moments where God did big, impressive things to reveal his being in the muchness.

Looking back, I need to confess something. It wasn’t just a season of muchness where God wowed me with his provision. It was also a season of too-much-ness where I huffed and puffed my way through each day and wondered if I’d make it to the next one without losing whole chunks of myself.

The thing about life is that in between the majestic moments are the everyday ones. And in between the everyday ones are the really, really, really hard ones. Times when we know good and well that God is all around us, but we can’t seem to make him out. Or don’t have the energy to look. Or we give in to distraction and so don’t even have to try. We seek and do not find even one demonstration of his presence. He seems silent. Invisible. Gone.

I know you know this. I know you, too, live in this rhythm. We all do.

When we find ourselves lost in the fog, we can berate ourselves for our lack of faith and conclude that God’s seeming absence is our fault. I’m thinking … maybe it is? I mean, God doesn’t change. As my pastor often says, “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Yup. So why the silence? Why the drab instead of the stunning?

As I look back at how my months went from muchness to too-much-ness, I see a sliver of a lesson. In attending to the unending demands of caregiving for my brother, chairing a board and grandmothering my grands – all while still working and speaking and more – the worker-bee-me kept buzzing. Flying, driving, wound-caring, cooking, waking, managing, leading, loving, cleaning, working. I didn’t miss a beat.

Except I did. I missed another part of me. A part of myself that I shoved underground. The soft, open, hungry, human part of me.

What were the signs? I cut my fingers with a powered hedge clipper while going too fast and not paying attention. I said yes over and over to too many things and so wasn’t really present for any of them. I got grouchy. Super grouchy. I looked up at the sunset and saw just a sunset. I still warmed to Mia’s welcome (nothing can change that!). I cooked less and less and ate fast food more and more. If God was showing off around me, my eyes were averted and I didn’t notice.

Okay – I don’t want to slip into a self-critical diatribe of what I loser I was. Because I wasn’t a loser at all. I look back and see how I plowed ahead with a God-anointed perseverance and made it through to the other side with a brother who is now in thriving health, a seminary with a strong leader and family members who are finding their footing. With God’s help, I did it.

But there was a cost. I missed part of me. And that part of me suffered in ways she shouldn’t have suffered. She couldn’t lift her eyes to the sunset, take in the dog’s bark or be fueled by the smells of dinner because I kept her stuffed down in a space where I could manage her while getting everything else done. Perhaps that was okay for a season in order to get through it. But now that it’s over, I’m noticing.

There was another price. I also missed part of God. In shoving that part of me down and out of sight, I also shoved down my awareness of God’s provision and presence with me in it all. The feeling of “alone” took over. He was there for sure. But because I dismissed my needy self, I also ignored his ongoing care in meeting my needs.

I’ve re-engaged a part of me that I didn’t have time for. She’s sleeping more. She’s walking and taking in nature. She’s reading, doing a jigsaw puzzle, staring at the landscape. In the small, she’s being restored and also re-engaging God. I’ve started a new devotional practice focused on my needs and God’s presence – knowing I won’t do it perfectly, but I can intentionally come to God with a posture of openness to his presence and provision.

What would I do differently next time? Because there will always be a next time. In the midst of the too-much-ness I can remember not to shuttle my own neediness into the corner while attending to the neediness of others. I might invite my whole self into rest as I drift off to sleep. Or bring more parts of me along on errands or to help a family member. Or welcome my softer side as she nudges me to notice the fuchsia and tangerine ribboned sunset. There, together, we can receive God’s embrace as he reaches out to hold us in his always open arms.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Elisa Morgan's latest book is Fruitful Living, which will be released in March 2025. She is the cohost of the podcast, God Hears Her. She is also the cohost of Discover the Word and contributor to Our Daily Bread. Her other books include Christmas Changes Everything, You are Not Alone, When We Pray Like Jesus, Hello, Beauty Full, and The Beauty of Broken. Connect with Elisa @elisamorganauthor on Facebook and Instagram.