We are the Lord's dwelling place

In the past couple of weeks, I've felt like a grated carrot.

Let me explain. There are a lot of fresh vegetables available in Athens, of which I've been eating a lot. The other day I decided to incorporate this organic goodness into a dessert, so I made a carrot cake. Grating the carrots for the cake was the most strenuous step of the recipe -- stripping away the layers of the vegetable was time consuming and harder than I thought it would be, especially when the carrot had been shaved down to its core, the thin layers peeled away by the repetitive scraping of the vegetable peeler. It was awkward and occasionally painful and clumsy -- holding the thin carrot in one hand to grate it with the other wasn't the easiest thing to do. Over and over, the layers were worn down and peeled away until there was hardly anything left.

That's how I'd been feeling. A lack of rest from a busy schedule, worry that who I am wasn't enough to be accepted by others and the exhaustion of the city had left my heart feeling like there was hardly anything left of me. I'd been yearning for a breathing space, a sacred place where my soul could feel free, where I could close my eyes and just breathe. I was tired like carrots. Grated carrots.

I'm realizing that taking time to rest in the Lord isn't just about physical rest. He is also a place to rest from who we think we "should" be, to rest from our fears, to rest from our worries and anxieties. He is a place to rest from the world and others in it. To go into our interior room, letting everything go, and to just be as we are with our Maker, our Designer, our God. To let him refresh and renew us, whether we are alone or in a group of people. To rest in him.

Psalm 84:1 says, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord...!" We are his dwelling place; he chooses to make his home in us. We are lovely, and we can't add or subtract anything from our loveliness.

The other day a priest told me, "Our desire for holiness and to be a good Christian is our greatest gift; everything else is secondary."

We have this desire for holiness, and therefore, we don't have to try to be something or someone; we are, and this is our gift to the world and to others. We are the Lord's dwelling place; "we are his handiwork" (Ephesians 2:10). We are lovely.

To carry on with the carrots, although uncomfortable, the grating was kind of nice: it exposed the core of who I am, what I need and what I am not willing to let go. The cake, too, was delicious. What freedom and what a gift we have in being Christ's.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Missouri, native and graduate of Truman State University with a bachelor's degree in English. She now lives in Athens, Greece, where as a Fulbright fellow she teaches English.