Sometimes the best thing to do is stop.

Sometimes the best thing to do is stop. To stand still and take a breath. Give yourself time to figure out what you can let go of in order to make room for what is next. To see what is unfolding in and around you.

Last summer as I waited for my lunch order after a morning spent writing, I browsed in an adjacent gift shop. A friendly clerk was telling the people at the counter that she’d raised her children in New Mexico ‘so that they would be kinda normal.’ She’d recently relocated to the Texas Hill Country to live near one of her daughters.

I approached the register with my purchases (which included two gorgeous children’s books for the twins). She wondered where I was from. She was curious about my morning and plans for the rest of the day. She asked about the hobnail pitcher I was considering. She’d been admiring it and was thinking of getting one herself to fill with lemonade to cool warm afternoons.

As she wrapped my purchases, she asked what I’d been working on. I explained I’d been writing, and she was characteristically enthusiastic. ‘A writer—that’s wonderful! Thank you!! We need you!’ Her exuberance made me smile.

‘What have you written?’ she inquired. I described a book I helped coauthor some years ago and then I told her my most recent work was Hopeful Lament. I was poised to describe it when I caught her visceral response. Her face had fallen, and desolation was deepening the creases on her time-worn face.

‘No, thank you,’ she blurted, ‘I’ve had enough suffering in my life. I don’t need homework!’ Stunned into silence, I took my purchase and walked away, mumbling that I hoped she’d have a good day.

But after my initial surprise, I realized her response was what all of us rarely say out loud. She was expressing what we all know in our bones to be true about sorrow—that it’s hard and lonely work. She was voicing the reality that we are weary of pain and compounding losses.

I am still convinced lament is ultimately a hopeful act that trusts our sorrows deserve to be felt, and that Love holds us when we weep.

Even so, sometimes the most necessary thing is to stop reinvesting the wheel. To stop going through the motions and sticking to routine. At least for right now. Sometimes the wisest action is letting go.

And sometimes rest and laughter and celebration are more than indulgence. Sometimes they are necessary. In December and the early part of January, I wasn’t productive. I didn’t post about my idyllic holiday (although, thankfully, it genuinely was at times). I didn’t come up with a new motto or five-year plan or solve the world’s problems. I didn’t count my steps or my calories.

I rested. I laughed. I spent time with those I love. I watched old movies. I read. I cooked good food, sometimes the simplest possible, sometimes old favorites, and sometimes new experiments simply for joy. I celebrated the Divine choosing humility and wondered at the story of a baby born in a far-off corner of the world to simple people. A Child whose arrival was celebrated by poor (and probably smelly) laborers and mysterious foreigners.

I did my best to stay in the moment instead of worrying about tomorrow or next week or next month. Not because planning and productivity are wrong or unimportant but because they aren’t the only things that matter. Because our souls need quiet and simple and slow sometimes.

I’m back to work and am dreaming and planning for the good things 2025 will hold. And I’m grateful to be beginning this year without exhausting myself by trying (and failing) to make every moment perfect. I’m breathing in mercy and breathing out love.

And I’m asking simple questions of my days:

Where can I embrace simplicity? How can I be kind to myself? What can I do to care for others?

How about you? Try finding a quiet moment or two to ask yourself:

What do I need less of? Where can I let go?

Where did I notice wisdom or joy or beauty today? What am I thankful for?

What is something kind or helpful thing I did (or could do) for another?

And no matter what your world holds, you can find a pause if you need one. You can stop pushing, even for a moment. You can ask for help, even if trusting Divine Love isn’t easy.

Maybe try this breath prayer:

With care,

terra

PS I’m thrilled to share that my book cover won a design award! Hopeful Lament was one of the Top Shelf winners (see them all here, scroll down to nonfiction to see my book featured among some amazing titles!).

I’ll leave you with this blessing:

Last Night
an epiphany blessing

The blackest night
and then
a creaking door

definitively closed
without warning.
A passageway

before you
whose end appears.
Questions unanswered

even as
new life stirs—
miraculous,

long sought,
impossible, or
at least improbable,

undeniable.
Grace in
strange clothes.

The old despair
left behind.
A spark

of joy
spreading like
wildfire.

Like certainty.
Like hope.
Like love.

-tlm, 12.31.24