Reflections on My Journey to Whitespace

The white area over the window while it drove my husband crazy when it happened ended up being a daily reminder of the spiritual whitespace that God was calling me to.

Finding spiritual whitespace isn't about carving out an hour of time to escape the things that stress us.

It's the opposite.  It's getting away from everything we do to distract ourselves from all the hidden pieces---in order to nurture our soul.  It's getting away from  the lie that spiritual rest is something we have to work hard at in order to get closer to God.....   Spiritual rest is a journey of awakening our hearts to fully receive.

Finding Spiritual Whitespace by Bonnie Gray

This week has had me reflecting on my journey to spiritual whitespace.  I've shared in bits and pieces parts of what I've learned out of those moments of whitespace that I've learned to embrace, but my journey into whitespace came in a rather unexpected way.

In June of last year I was seeing a counselor related to panic attacks I had started having a year earlier and while we were working our way through dealing with them some life changes began to occur one being the discovery that my husband and I were expecting our first child.  Another being the loss of a job that I had come to care about a great deal more than I had even realized at the time.  

So my job officially ended at the end of May and somehow as imperfectly as I had managed to hold it together while finishing up my final weeks there when it was gone I found myself emotionally falling apart.  My panic attacks which had been manageable prior to the job ending suddenly began coming on full force.  Nearly every day I would find myself dissolving into uncontrollable tears.  

It was in this moment that God brought Bonnie Gray and her story into my life through her newly released book Finding Spiritual Whitespace-Awakening Your Soul to Rest.  As I read Bonnie's story about her battles with anxiety and panic attacks in her own life and the journey God had lead her on I felt like I had found a kindred spirit.  And so my  own  journey into spiritual whitespace began.  

Over the next several months I found myself surviving an extremely lonely and isolated pregnancy by learning to take the isolation and silence to listen to God.   It was so hard.  I spent a lot of time in bed feeling sick and exhausted and found myself often crying as in the silence God started to bring me face to face with my truth.   When I found myself focused on what I saw as my failures, God insisted on showing me that He loved me in my brokenness and isolation because in that I became more dependent on Him.  He showed me how much I needed to fall apart because that is where He could put the pieces back together in a way that no one else could.  It was in those whitespace moments that He could truly show me what I was to Him.  A thing of beauty that I honestly don't see in myself most of the time.  Someone that He created for a very specific purpose.  

So while it could be easy to look at spiritual whitespace as a chance to escape the busyness of stressful everyday life, it is so much more than that.  It's the opportunity to stop and shut everything else out just to give myself a chance to connect with God in a way that brings me joy.  Tonight it is a few stolen hours at Starbucks writing part of my story to share with you.  Yesterday it was taking a couple hours to sort CD's with a friend while our baby girls napped.  Sometimes it's a walk through the neighborhood I live in asking God what He plans for our family in the future here.  There are so many opportunities to connect with God in the everyday things that we so often don't slow down for because we are hurrying on to the next task to do.  

Bonnie Gray puts it best when she describes it as a concept taken from art and design.  She calls it something that breathes beauty and gives the eye a place to rest.  Something that keeps art from being overtaken by clutter.  When put in that context spiritual whitespace becomes what keeps our souls from being cluttered with the least important things and allows us to prioritize feeding and giving rest to our souls and in doing so having more to give to the important things in life.