In my previous life, I didn’t know how to linger. I remember once getting so angry with my son’s baseball coach because he wouldn’t tell me when baseball practice ended. I had two other kids, one was a baby and a full-time job. He said, Practice ends when it ends. I’d end up waiting in the car with that baby 45 minutes to an hour for the coach to be moved to end practice.
What is wrong with him? I fumed. Does he have any idea what I could get done in 45 minutes to an hour? I’m actually still kind of mad about that. You know how I can tell? The baby is 19 years old and I’m still writing about it. Whatever. The beauty of your own blog? You can vent as long as you need to.
Now, I am better at lingering. Subtracting a few big things certainly helps but it seems in any stage of life that lingering is better. In her book, Soulful Simplicity, Courtney Carver learned some lessons after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It’s amazing how a diagnosis can cause us to do what we should have been doing all along. Courtney radically changed her life. Among other things, she learned to linger.
She writes, You can infuse clarity and softness into your everyday life by reclaiming the lost art of lingering….incorporating vacation moments into your every day life is the better choice. This will take practice, intention, and a commitment to reprioritize, but what happens if you are successful is that you enjoy life more, and as a side effect become more loving, creative and productive.
There’s a mysterious Hebrew word in our Bibles, Selah. You will see it often in the book of Psalms and also in Habakkuk. It is used 74 times. The best anyone can figure out it means stop and listen or maybe even stop and praise God or some believe it is a musical directive, like pause here singers and musicians, take a breath. It may even mean stop and get ready for what is next.
I like it because it seems like we are being instructed to linger. Linger in the moment. Linger in God’s Word. Stop. Breathe.
I used to think it was funny when older people were depicted as sitting on park benches feeding pigeons all day. Except now, I get it.
Just today, on my morning walk, I paused a lot. I sat on a park bench. Selah. I noticed how green everything looked and then how the green was dotted with lots of red. Selah. The red was cardinals. More than I’ve ever seen on my walk. Selah. I found a patch of bluebonnets growing in the sun and let my dog linger there for pictures. Selah.
Selah. Lingering in grace.
Dr. Cindy Ryan is a pastor, mother of three, Mimosa to Keller and Pace, breast cancer survivor and lingerer.
Dr. Cindy Ryan 
Thank you Cindy!! I have a friend who is always telling me to mosey….. I’m working on it💕
Yes love to mosey too!
We SELAH during our contemporary worship service at FUMC Colleyville. Stop. Exhale. Listen. Ask. Hear. It’s my favorite part of the service.
That is wonderful! I wish I would have known that to include in this blog. Wow! Is it like a moment of silence?
Yes. The music stops and the leader instructs us to stop everything we’re doing. Put down your phone. Stop looking for the scripture reading or reading the announcements or making your shopping list or talking to the person next to you. She tells us to inhale everything that happened that week, everything that’s on our mind or worrying you or making you anxious… and we have a great big exhale together. Then we are silent to listen. We ask God what he wants us to hear in the next few moments. And then we hear the message.