A Light in November

a note on abiding, mental health, and resilience

If heaven was a season, it would be autumn.

The world is on fire with color.

Death and decay bring vibrancy and more light.

Sun’s rays reflect off of the yellows and oranges and reds.

Our eyes blink from the luminescence.

If you look directly at autumn, you will see echoes behind your eyelids: yellow, tear-drop reminders.

My kids touch sap, covet acorn shells, turn over stones.

It makes me fall in love with them—and with creation—again and again.

I help them find small saplings that have fallen on the ridge and haul them to the scrappy lean-to we’ve been building. It is a fort where the imagination lives. The smell of bark is like burnt cinnamon.

My son takes one of his arsenal of plastic swords and shreds bark off of an old stump. I think about generations of little boys with toy swords wanting to conquer things.

My daughter helps me gather wood for the walls and then gets bored and wanders off to explore. She’s growing up. She finds an ant village hiding under a stone and then carefully replaces the rock roof like I would and says, “let’s be kind, they’ve worked really hard on their house.”

We travel down the hill together. They lead the way.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Follow us,” they say.

As I travel down the ravine behind them, watching their little legs carry them over the stones and fallen leaves, my mind dwells on the holy: These are the moments that make living and recovery worth every second.

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Are you able to pause, dwell, be still?

Mental health is key to recovery and in our world today, we have many things competing for our attention.

Today, it is almost impossible to be still, to notice, to be present. We’ve got social media buzzing, news stories flying, and everyone an expert at something sharing the next best hack or tip.

Constantly.

John Ortberg, in the foreword of a book I’m re-reading for the third time right now, says this:

“To choose to live an unhurried life in our day is somewhat like taking a vow of poverty in earlier centuries; it is scary. It is an act of faith. But there are deeper riches on the other side.”

I’m going to be honest with you. For me, I’ve had to practice stillness and presence. It’s an intentional act and takes repeated practice (and I often fail).

I have to be awake for it.

What does ‘dwelling’ mean to you?

I don’t mean dwelling as in obsessive thinking (e.g., “stinkin’ thinkin”’ folks in recovery know a thing or two about – I’m speaking from experience here).

I mean dwelling as in resting.

Waiting.

Abiding.

With open hands.

Bowed head.

Or like an autumn leaf that two-steps its way to the ground.

As Faith Eury Cho says in her book, Experiencing Friendship with God:

“To dance with mystery, we need a childlike trust.”

Autumn helps me remember again that dwelling leads back to a place of wonder. Like my children on a Saturday autumn afternoon. Taking time to examine the world, soak it in, resting in what really matters.

Presence.

It is a beautiful thing to sit in silence or sip a latte or kick a pile of leaves on a dirt path and need to be nowhere anytime soon.

Put our phones down.

Without an agenda.

Without a deadline.

Empty.

Present.

Free.

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My hope for you is that you can take a moment to pause today.

For your mental health and recovery, to dwell in presence.

To appreciate the way the light hits just so through your window or on the forest path ahead.

This moment of pause, of stillness, may help support your mental health more than you can imagine. Together, we may just find a new sense of peace in our skin, in our being, when we abide.

Resources for your journey (or to share with a friend)

Need support to do a bit more dwelling this season? Looking to increase your mental wellbeing? Download your FREE Practice Resilience: 5 Simple Actions that Will Help You Through Tough Times guide or share with a friend!

Some of my favorite books on stillness and abiding:

Experiencing Friendship with God: How the Wilderness Draws Us to His Presence by Faith Eury Cho

Stop the Spiral Devotional: 100 Days of Breaking Free from Negative Thoughts by Jennie Allen

Or you can check out some incredible articles by my friends with the Grit and Grace Project here.

Practical Application

• Take 5 minutes and turn off your phone and go outside. Walk, sit, whatever is most comfortable for you. Close your eyes if you’d like. Notice what happens.

• Invite a friend to lunch or coffee and discuss this prompt: “What are some things in your life that are distracting you from being able to rest or quiet your mind?”

• Comment below what you plan to do to apply the concept of dwelling, abiding, or rest into your week.

How do you find stillness in a noisy world? What helps your mental health? Share in the comments below to support others in the Circle of Chairs community.