Before I’d learned the true meaning of meditation, I remember riding my bike out to the beach as a teenager to find a quiet spot to sit and think. I’d sit with my legs crossed in the sand, feeling small in comparison to the vast horizon and lack of people around me.
I’d felt like I’d been “told” to go there by a force I’d not yet reckoned with.
When my Christian friends would ask me how I felt about God, I wouldn’t have anything negative to say. I’d recall these times where I’d go to the beach, and how’d I’d felt a presence without anyone being there.
I’d tell them that “I find God in nature. When I’m sitting there quietly, I feel like someone is hugging me.”
They’d look at me perplexed, hesitant to believe that we were finding God differently. Often times, I’d feel judged for the way I felt like God and I were connecting.
One thing we learn as we get older, there is always more to the story.
I’d try to force myself to feel God’s presence at youth group events and worship gatherings. I’d see my friends truly connecting with something and feel jealous that I wasn’t experiencing these holy moments as naturally.
Over time I drew away from youth groups and fizzled out from attending Sunday church with my mom regularly. It didn’t feel like an obligation to attend these organized events, though I did notice an increase in my participation sitting on the beach quietly.
Flash forward to early college days. I’d stopped playing team sports and needed some form of exercise to keep me going. I’d heard of yoga and watched a few YouTube videos to get the hang of it before attending a class.
My best friend and I commited to a class together at a local studio, excited to try something new. From the very first few moments of the class to the end where we were relaxing, I’d experienced a similar feeling to what was happening on the beach.
I didn’t say much or make a big deal about the God thing. After the class, both my friend and I looked at each other thinking the same thing. “We are going to be life long yogis.”
Both of us were soccer players, team sport junkies. The yoga practice was a solo thing. The teacher reminded us multiple times to focus on our breathing and not our surroundings.
This went against everything I’d learned so far about being aware. Up to that point, the only time I’d ever gone inward were my quiet moments on the beach.
Come to find out, learning how to go inward was a lesson I’d needed, though I’d not met anyone up to that point that had made it so easy to reach.
So we kept going back. Regularly, then obsessively. I couldn’t get enough of the exercise itself, and then whatever deeper work was happening inspired me.
Each class would end with a quiet time of reflection. I’d lay with my eyes closed or sit with crossed legs quietly.
I’d cry, I’d laugh, and sometimes would feel a wave of peace wash over me.
As the story goes, this quiet time with our thoughts, was also called meditation.
A quick google search will tell you that meditation is the practice of focused breathing that allows for deep relaxation and helps with reducing stress.
I’d felt on top of the world with the exercise and the inward work that was happening.
Until I didn’t.
Life did its life-ing, and next thing I know, I’m suffering from postpartum depression after having my daughter. I’d loved the idea of becoming a mother and knew it was a calling of mine to be one.
What I didn’t love was being the only friend in my group with a child at the time. No one could relate to how isolating early motherhood can be, or how it becomes more challenging to do everything.
The compound of the depression and a failing relationship made the few moments of quiet time I could find terrifying. In those moments my thoughts were so dark and ugly.
Meditating became a practice that would only magnify that which weighed on me. Making the heavy feel heavier.
If you’re a mother or care for someone’s as your own, you know that the bathroom is the only safe place for a breakdown.
The only door you don’t feel bad for locking.
It was here, in my bathroom, where I’d gone to have a few moments of quiet time. I’d prayed before, though I’d never meditated and prayed at the same time.
I’d never tried to focus on talking to God and sitting quietly with myself like that before. If I had, I didn’t know it yet. Maybe it was because this time I’d had a need that I knew was so great that “only God could help me with it”.
I was at a completely depleted and weak point in every area of my mind, body, and spirt.
God met me there.
1 “The Lord is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
2 He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
3 He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.
4 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
There is always more to the story.
This piece is only a small part of mine. A peak into the reality that our journey with faith doesn’t happen over night.
Our spiritual practices can vary and change and evolve with time.
I’ve had people argue with me that “yoga is the devil” and that meditation will “steer you wrong”.
All I can say is that God is God. He is capable of using anything and anyone to transform at anytime.
Looking back now, I see how God was using those early days to draw me closer to him. I believe when scripture says that God has known us since our earliest days, that his word is legit.
Thanks to Jesus, we have direct connection to God when we go inward. He is there in the quiet moments we go to sit with ourselves. Sometimes we are so caught up in our own thoughts that we don’t notice anyone else.
When we turn to acknowledge, “Oh God, you’re right there!”, He will sit with us, pray with us, and love us no matter the circumstance.
Your challenge this week is to meditate with God. Sit with yourself first, and simply acknowledge that God is God.
I trust that He is good and capable to meet you on the street, in a church, on a boat, in your dreams, on the beach, during worship, in a class, doing anything.
How ever you choose to go inward this week, I’ll be praying that God meets you with his healing love and perfect peace.
Makenna Curtis
Local Pulse Community Writer
Holy Moments
