A Seat at Our Inner Table

As my head hit the pillow, I could almost feel a wave of fluster flood my body, although I was not exactly sure why. I am so sensitive that I am like a sponge that, without realizing it, can go a whole day absorbing every hint of emotion in everyone around me until I am totally depleted.

My spiritual director and I frequently talk about an interior conference table where the Lord and I sit, referring to it as a “decision-making” space. We are constantly discerning who, if anyone, gets a seat at that table, or who is allowed in the room when I am making decisions. It is an image I often sit with when I am scanning my heart in moments of agitation.

As I laid in bed and took an inventory of all the messaging I had consumed on Instagram that day, or of all of the commentary from friends or family I had internalized, I realized how many people I had invited into my decision-making space who were not the Lord. I scrolled through the hot takes of strangers for validation or expected a friend to perfectly understand me, clouding my heart with the anxiety of distraction, instead of the peace of His voice.

I was reminded of this dynamic in my prayer by today’s reading from Wisdom 13:6-7 where we hear, “For they indeed have gone astray perhaps, though they seek God and wish to find him. For they search busily among his works, but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.”

Sister, you and I are in a constant search for the sweetness of His voice, yet it is so easy to not catch the tone of His voice in the chaos of all the noise, even when we are surrounded by such good. Today, He is offering us a new mercy to return to the stillness we are always seeking out. Let us ask Him to have the first seat at our inner table.

Return to the stillness we are always seeking out. // Sarah ElizabethClick to tweet

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