Be Still

When we picked our wedding date, I knew that we were setting me up for a crazy month.  Back then, we said, “We can do anything for one month, and at the end of it, we’ll be married!”

It is still true.  We are going to be married in less than 3 weeks.  We can do anything for three weeks.  But now I’m experiencing the stress and pressure that we foresaw.

My shoulders are perpetually scrunched up to my ears.  My brain feels super saturated with material that I have (and haven’t) learned in my past two years in a medical school classroom.  By day, I puuuuuush all my excitement, checklists, and worries about our wedding back in order to cram in page by page the information that I will have to regurgitate in six short days.  At night, I lie awake, oscillating from being giddy with excitement to being paralyzed with fear. 

“I’m going to be a bride!”

“I’m going to be a bride?”

“I’m going to be a wife!”

“I’m going to be a wife?”

I rush, rush, rush to get to school in the morning.  I carefully time my lunch break, and overestimate how much housework I can get done in that time frame.  I cram, cram, cram until dinner.  Then I eat, and force myself through yet another practice test (which I will probably fail) and yet another study guide (which I’m not sure if I’ll remember).  When my brain can’t handle it any more, then I turn to wedding plans.  As you can imagine, by that point, I am not only at my saturation point for academics, but also for emotions, planning, and organization.

Poor Jeremy.

Today, I was particularly discouraged and tense.  A few things didn’t quite go the way I had hoped.  I was extremely irritated with the rush.  Angry that I am struggling to savor the preparations of our marriage.

A Bible verse from my past flitted through my mind, almost softer than a whisper:

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.’”  -Psalm 46:10

“I don’t have time to be still right now, God.  I don’t.  Can't you see that I’m late again?  How am I supposed to be still?”

At intervals throughout my afternoon, the verse would make another pass through the corners of my mind.

Before long, I began to make a list.  A list of the areas of my life right now that have left me feeling tense.  A list of the areas in which God is sovereign.  In which He has the opportunity to be exalted.

It's the same list.

God is in control of my studying, my budgeting of my time.  He is Lord over my exam scores.  He is in control of where those exam scores will take me.  God is King of the land and the sea, and therefore, He reigns over the stretch of road that separates me from my new home. 

God is sovereign over our wedding.  He will see to it that the weather is acceptable, even if that means changing my view of acceptable weather.  He is Lord over my Mom’s blood pressure.  He is the God who is overseeing my Grandpa’s radiation treatments, and my sister’s grad school application.  It is He who makes the flowers grow, even the flowers in my Dad’s garden.  If he clothes them in all their finery, how much more will He care for me?  He will be exalted in the gifts offered by so many who are giving graciously of their time and talents so see that our wedding is wonderful.  He is the author of the joining of two families.  Of two people.

Tonight, I am choosing to be still.  I made dinner.  And I ate it.  I packed a few things.  I tried on my dress for the wedding reception.  I twirled around the room, pretending I was dancing with my groom.  I studied, attempting to maintain the attitude of stillness.

You might ask, how is it that you are remaining still?

It’s all relative, really.  In the grand scheme of things, God is the one who is moving. 

We need only to be still.

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." –Exodus 14:14