Last week, we began our new series on restlessness. What did you notice last week as you took an assessment of the various areas of your life? Was there an area of your life that felt off? How did you experience knowing this area was “off”? Let’s take a look at how restlessness can manifest.
How does restlessness manifest today?
In the last seven months since my book, Busy Lives & Restless Souls, came out I had the opportunity to pose this question to numerous groups. Here are a few of the responses people have shared when I asked them, “How do you notice restlessness manifesting in your own life?”
- Checking our phones constantly
- Always searching for the more or the next thing to satisfy
- Over-working
- Online shopping
- Social media scrolling
- Changing relationships
- Addiction
- Over-committing
- Shifting jobs over and over again
- Trying to find the best “fix” for a planner or organization system
From my own experience and listening to others, I’ll add:
- Seeking fulfillment from a material gift of our life
- Pursuing satisfaction and fulfillment from another person instead of God
- Letting our life’s foundation be something or someone other than God
- Overachieving
- Status seeking
What about in your own life? How does restlessness manifest in your own life?
In God alone is my soul at Rest:
One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 62. In this psalm, it gives us clear direction on where we find our rest, “In God alone is my soul at rest.”
As one of my armchair theologian friends likes to remind me, “We are donuts!” What she means is each of us have a huge God-size hole within us by the very nature of our creation. The hole can only be filled by God despite our tendency to attempt to calm the restlessness within us by money, things, relationships, status, or accomplishments. Only God can fill us.
This sentiment is captured not only in scripture, but it where the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “The desire for God is written in the human heart because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for (CCC, 27).”
It is also captured in the famous words of St. Augustine, “our hearts are restess until they rest in thee.”
Go Deeper?
Pray:
- Ps 62: “In God alone is my soul at rest”
- Exodus 33:14: The LORD answered: I myself will go along, to give you rest.
Read:
Watch/Listen:
- This place in my heart by Cooper Ray
- In Christ Alone by Lauren Daigle
10 More Slots Opened for Wednesday’s Day of Reflection!!!!
Due to the response for the Who is Author of Your Life? day of reflection, we opened up 10 more slots. Register by Tuesday, October 17th, at 8pmCT.
“I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” ~St. Mother Teresa
Who is holding your pencil and writing your worth?
Who is fostering your healing?
Who is filling in your calendar?
Who is guiding your journey?
To all women reading this, I sincerely hope you can join us on October 18th at the Catholic Life Center! Writing this retreat with my friend, Stephanie, is an experience of letting God author within us. I invite you to come spend a day with other women as we seek to understand the gift of God’s authorship in our lives. We will begin with a look at “Who is the Author?” then move to the sources of our writer’s block and finally discern the “love letter” God is inviting us to write right now in this season of life. Register here!
Busy Person’s Retreat October 23-26th has two time slots remaining!
We are one week out from our second Online Busy Person’s Retreat! There are only two remaining time-slots for next week: 8am-9amCT/9am-10amET or 9:30am-10:30amCT/ 10:30am-11:30amET.
The gift of technology allows us to enter your home, your office, your world, and accompany you as you seek to grown your relationship with God.
If you…
- Have young children at home and feel you have no chance to get away for retreat, we can walk with you as you hold a child or as your child reads or quietly plays in the background.
- Are caring for a sick loved one or the elderly, we will gladly hold space for you to sit with God each day to be strengthened for the journey of care-giving.
- Are unable to drive or not able to get to a retreat house to make a retreat, let us “drive” to you and offer you a time to renew your faith
- Live far from a spiritual director, we can close that distance
- Are feeling lost, alone, or unsure of what God’s invitations are for you in this season of life, we can help you listen and believe in the the promises of God that you are not alone, you are unconditionally loved, and you are accompanied in your discernment.
I invite you to give yourself the gift of accompaniment!
Becky Eldredge
Becky is an Ignatian-trained spiritual director, retreat facilitator, and writer. She is the author of the Busy Lives and Restless Souls (March 2017, Loyola Press) and The Inner Chapel (April 2020, Loyola Press). She helps others create space to connect faith and everyday life through facilitating retreats and days of reflection, through writing, and through spiritual direction. With nearly twenty years of ministry experience within the Catholic Church, Becky seeks to help others discover God at work in the every day moments of people’s lives by utilizing St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises and the many gifts that our Catholic faith and Ignatian Spirituality provide.
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