Abide

What does the word "abide" mean to you?  I have been pondering this question quite a bit over the last several weeks after this word was "given" to me at all-employee retreat at Merry Lea.  I was on a short prayer walk, one of the optional afternoon activities at retreat, and as I stopped beside the wetland for a few minutes, suddenly this word filled my mind.  I think it was explaining what I was experiencing at the moment, but also a feeling that I have had since returning from Nicaragua. 

Abide seems like an old-fashioned, Biblical word to me.  Do you use it much in everyday conversation?  I certainly don't.  So I have been doing a little research (=Googling) to figure out what it means.  Abide basically means to remain stable or fixed. to continue in a place, dwell, remain, tarry.  Abide is used a lot in John 15, "Abide in me and I will abide in you."  I have been spending some time trying to figure out what this means for my life right now.   Before I went to Nicaragua, I spent so much time in preparation, striving for what was ahead, and desiring change.  Now I don't feel that desire at all.  I feel contentment with continuing with my place in life for awhile - work, activities, while also trying to resist the busy-ness of US culture that become more noticeable to me after I was away for awhile. That doesn't mean I don't desire things to change, but I am not as restless or striving for change as I had been.

Below is a picture of the Calendar Garden, a part of the Elkhart County Parks system, which is a beautiful place to go to relax and think.  It is a circular garden designed around a central pond, planted to have something blooming or growing every month of the year.  It was a place I wanted to go after I got back from Nicaragua, and I made it there a few weeks ago.

 Abide here for awhile...