Niequist - Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

ZONDERVAN

Savor

Copyright 2015 by Shauna Niequist

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Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

ePub Edition February 2015: ISBN 9780310352129

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Cover design: Connie Gabbert Design and Illustration

Cover and interior illustrations: Lindsay Letters

Back cover photography: Jennifer Blair

Interior design and typesetting: Mandi Cofer

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / RRD / 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my grandparents Bob and Leah Barry, who are still living a love story after all these years, and teaching us all what it means to really savor life.

CONTENTS

What I want to do is savor this lifemy life, my children, my community, this gorgeous world God created. Thats what we all want, right? To soak up the goodness all around us, to be aware of holy fingerprints everywhere, to walk through each day expecting and noticing those glints and shimmers of the divine right in the dailyin a hug, a tomato sandwich, a quiet moment, a text from someone we love.

Thats what I want, and so often I miss it. I lay in bed at night frustrated with myself that I allowed the minor annoyances of life to obscure the rich melody underneath it. I rush and push and dont even see the beauty all around me. I let my fear about the unknowns in our future or my desire to control everything and everyone around me cover over the deep beauty and grace and peace that are playing like a drumbeat under everything.

This collection is my attempt at paying attention, at clearing away space and noise, and inviting you to hear the drumbeat, too. Gods always speaking, always. Hes always moving, always present, always creating, always healing. The trick, at least for me, is paying attention. The trick is savoring.

I tend to live in my headanalyzing every word of that last conversation, regretting what I did, anticipating whats coming, worrying about what could go wrong. Whole plot lines unfoldbeginning, middle, endin the time it takes me to brush my teeth or for the toast to pop up out of the toaster.

Im trying to get out of my head. And Im trying to get right down into the raw soil of my own life. Because its happening whether I decide to notice or not. These children are growing taller each day. I peeked in at Henry last night, and it seemed his legs stretched all the way down his bed, as though hes a teenager and not a seven-year-old.

Things will not always be as they are nowthere will be new things, other things, good things. But I dont want to miss this, this right now, this sacred everyday. And I dont want to only see the surface. I want to see the depthsthe work of God all around me, in conversation and prayer and silence and music. I want to connect with the God who made me from dust, on purpose and for a purpose. I want to walk through my days in a warm conversation through prayer, aware as I walk that he walks with me, that as I speak, he hears me, that as I rest, he carries me.

I forget so easily that theres a bigger picture. Im easily seduced by the bustle of the daylunch and laundry, deadlines and dinnertime. I forget that its all held together by a holy, loving God, and that we get to be his partners in restoration and healing. I forget that theres more than I see, more than I can dream.

This book is my gift to you, my hand holding out to yourslets remember these things together. Lets clear away space together, trusting that what well find in even small moments of prayer and silence will transform us. When I begin the day in prayer, I find that its easier to continue that way. When I begin the day with Gods word, with silence, with a grounding sense of his love for me, then I find its easier to bring those things with me throughout the day, and its harder for me to locate them if I didnt pause with them at the start.

So lets begin together. Lets savor this day, the beauty of the world God made, the richness of family and friendship, the good gifts of creativity and work. All the things that populate our days are worth savoring. Lets walk together.

Dont you know that you yourselves are Gods temple and that Gods Spirit dwells in your midst?

1 Corinthians 3:16

These are my stories, the stories of life as it reveals itself in my field of vision, and the cast of characters are my friends and family and neighbors. Im telling these stories because theyre the only ones I know and the only ones I have the right to tell, believing that in them you will find your own stories, with your own beautiful and strange characters and plot twists. I believe that these love letters to my own quotidian life will unmask the tiny glimmers of hope and redemption masquerading as normal life in your corner of the world.

The world is alive, blinking and clicking, winking at us slyly, inviting us to get up and dance to the music thats been playing since the beginning of time, if you bend all the way down and put your ear to the ground to hear it.

You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.

You are more than dust and bones.

You are spirit and power and image of God.

YOUR STORY is worth tellingits part of Gods story, and his Spirit dwells within you. Take a few minutes to thank God both for your story and for his Spirit in you.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5

My friend Lauras New Years resolution is start where you are. I love it. Whatever thing seems too intimidating, whatever new skill seems too far off to develop, whatever project has been hanging over your head forever: start where you are.

Each of us has been created by a holy God with love, on purpose and for a purpose. But so many of us feel afraid or unprepared. This is the secret, though: No one is prepared enough. No one is perfectly ready.

Lets choose together to take one step forward today, whatever that meansa phone call, an hour of writing, a day away to dream. Sometimes even just a half hour to brainstorm or plan gets us unstuck. No one lives out an exciting calling without just plunging forward at some point, full of fear and uncertainty.