when you want to stop the very real suffocation of your soul

the next glorious installment of our Unwrapping Series (have you checked these out? Your soul & summer will exhale its thanks to you) so… an Unwrapping Summer post & gorgeous photos by The Soul Coach Emily Freeman

E very summer we head to the coast for a week or so.

Spend a little time letting the sea smooth out the jagged edges that have formed within and around us.

We let the salt burn the wounds, bury tired feet in the sand, let the salty nighttime hold us still and quiet until the first light of morning shows up with all her promises.

I stand on the shoreline and remember God’s words to Job when he spoke about the sea:

This far you may come and no farther. Here is where your proud waves halt.

That line of blue on brown where the sea meets land is a gift to my soul, a reminder that even something as wild as the sea has a limit, a line set by God.

When I look at my boundary lines in summer, I can sometimes get overwhelmed.

First it takes me a few weeks to even settle in to the different rhythms. And once I do, I sometimes don’t like what I’ve found. Summer makes it hard to plan, hard to find time alone, hard to predict what tomorrow might hold.

Here is where your proud waves halt.

I’m learning to embrace the lines and believe they have fallen for me in pleasant places.

And even though summer asks me to give up some things I think I need – like a schedule, like solitude, like the idea of a perfect vacation – she also invites me to open my hands and receive the gifts only she can offer.

So we take some chances and try a few things that need courage. We strap in to harnesses and fly over the warm Atlantic.

We stand on the edge of high dives and hold our breath as we step off the edge.

Mostly we look for water, both to drink and to float in.

Sometimes Daddys jump in pools to make children laugh and children do flips over sprinklers even though they get water up their nose.

Summer invites us to do what feels like the opposite of practical or useful. She is both simple and extravagant and I’m starting to like that about her.

Summer puts a warm hand on my shoulder and tells me to linger in the yard a little longer.

What’s good for my schedule — is often suffocating for my soul.

And so I’m listening for the whisper of the Spirit of God and learning to move to a slower rhythm.

It’s in summer when I learn this dance best.

 

Emily P. Freeman is one wondrous writer, a speaker, who lives with her husband John live in North Carolina with their three children, twins Ava and Stella, and their son, Luke. And she’s a rare listener who literally creates space for the soul to breathe. She is the author of four (pretty amazing) books, including her most recent release — that really is a soul exhale: Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World. 

Have you checked out SimplyTuesday.com to watch a free video series Emily created–  to give you practical ways to take a soul breath in the presence of Jesus even in the midst of your busy life. The fall shouldn’t start before you check these out — a perfect way to still unwrap summer.  And her Instagram feed? Is a source of constant inspiration — and perfect soul exhale: @emilypfreeman.