Next-Wave Ezine > church & culture

Sacred Spaces
By Emily Smith

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Yesterday I spent two hours in the emergency room followed by a trip to McDonald’s for what my husband insisted was a rite of passage for our 4 year old son…his first stitches. As we reflected on it afterwards, however, we realized it was equally a rite of passage for us in Parenthood…we looked at each other and said “we survived”. I don’t know why these crazy things happen, but they represent for me LIFE, in all its unpredictability.

When I was a student at LCS, I thought life was like a multiple choice test. I assumed that if I studied hard and picked the right answer, I’d be successful. Boy that house of cards crumbled quickly! The more life I live, the more questions I have instead of answers; the more confusion instead of clarity.

I wear many hats, of mother, wife, nurse, aunt, daughter, the “get the job done” person, caretaker, and probably more. Life can seem like an endless load of laundry or just another day at work if I’m not careful. That is why I am trying to get away from thinking about my life in terms of the roles I play, and instead look at who I am at the core, and how I can offer that part of myself to others and the world. In that place, I am not a mother or nurse, I am a woman who loves others deeply; I am not the one who puts dinner on the table, I am the one who gets on the floor to roll around with her boys and act silly. At the core of my self, God placed a special gift that the world needs, that reveals something of God to others, and no one can see that when I am wrapped up in just fulfilling my roles in life.

In the midst of the chaos of life, it can be such a challenge to find space for sacred moments with God. I am not talking about sitting down for a 15 minute “quiet time” or even a time of prayer, as great as those things are. What I find refreshes my soul the most are these moments of sacred space, where I can just BE with God, enjoying His presence; not asking anything of Him; feeling His delight in me. Sometimes those moments come when I am holding my baby in the middle of the night, snuggling him. I give him comfort and drink deeply of a quiet space to be with my Creator, who so uniquely created both of us. Other times it’s those first quiet moments when I wake up and no one else is up, and I can just lay in bed and feel the presence of the “One who is good to the weary” strengthening me for the day. Many times it’s the drive to work, often my only time to be alone for the day, and in the quiet of my car, the Almighty reminds me that He created me for His pleasure. When I make sacred space in my life for God to invade, I find I work more creatively, I mother more compassionately, I engage with my husband instead of coexisting with him, and all of the roles fade as the beauty of who God made me to be comes forth.

I wish I could say all of this comes naturally and this is how I live all the time. Unfortunately, I tend to slip back into thinking the “roles” define me. I get consumed with the jobs I need to accomplish and forget to offer others my true self. That is why God graciously and continually reminds me with things like a trip to the ER…interruptions that come to make me stop and realize there’s more to life than duties. The celebration of a rite of passage in the life of a 4 year old boy stops me in my tracks- it causes me to acknowledge the absolute miracle of life and of a God who longs for sacred space with me.

Emily Smith is a Registered Nurse @ Craig Hospital in Denver, Colorado and works with brain and spinal chord rehab patients. She is more importantly, the mother of Jack (4) and Benjamin (10 months) and the wife of Jason Smith, as student at Denver Seminary. Emily loves the outdoors and spends many hours in her backyard pulling weeds while Jack and Ben play in the sand, that is, if she can stay out of the sandbox herself. You can contact Emily @ emilyjane.smith@gmail.com. Ask her to start blogging.

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