Your Gentle Invitation to Exhale In This Season

I was tenderly moved by this woman’s heart and powerful story: Jodi H. Grubbs, a former island girl, fell headlong into the endless rush and exhaustion of hustle culture in the United States as an adult. But soon she realized God was bidding her to a return to the “island time” of her past. Jodi found sanctuary and ways to care for her soul by making space for God, others, and herself as she learned of another path away from burnout and toward restoration. Jodi invites you to grasp a sustainable approach to life anchored by the forced pauses of spiritual practices and an openhandedness before God. It’s a joy to welcome Jodi to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Jodi Grubbs

It was early on a summer morning, and I was barely awake. Sunrise was imminent.

I was twenty-seven years old and holding tight to my fresh dream of moving to Murrells Inlet, a small South Carolina coastal town we had just returned from visiting. Little did I know how many of my dreams would vanish that day.

I ran out of our bedroom to call 911 at my husband Brian’s request.

A kind voice answered at the other end, but at the sound of Brian’s body crashing onto the floor, I left the phone dangling. I quickly retraced my steps to find Brian dying. His aorta had ruptured, and he bled to death in less than two minutes, with me by his side. 

The sound of breath, of life, leaving his body was louder than I had expected. It was a literal soft whooshing sound.

The closest thing I had ever experienced was when I was fifteen. A thirty-foot whale shark surfaced right next to where I drifted with my friend in a small sailboat. Both situations were terrifying and yet beautiful in inexplicable ways. Both caught me by surprise and formed a lump in my throat.

But that morning, as I felt bewilderment, fear, and disbelief, I wondered if I was caught up in a nightmare. 

Two years prior, on a summer afternoon, coming around the bend in the road on Interstate 85 near Atlanta, Brian was riding as a passenger in a work truck that inadvertently found itself in the middle of a road rage incident. Brian had nowhere to go; he was crushed under a semitruck in this most horrific accident.

“…my biggest fear of slowing down came because I knew I’d need to sit with the hard stuff. I knew that I might not get answers. But mostly, I didn’t want to feel the feelings.“

Life came to a standstill that day.

Due to the actions of strangers, Brian hovered between life and death. That day turned into nine months in the hospital, four of them in a shock-trauma where my island heart saw human suffering so tragic it remains hard to explain. 

My grieving was intense that season. It was layered from the trauma my mind and body went through during the months when Brian had so many close calls in the hospital. It feels unbearable when you watch someone endure agony, and you can’t prevent their pain and suffering. 

Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t write our own stories.

Sure, we make decisions, we plot a course, and go full steam ahead with our hopes and dreams—but we don’t actually write our story.

Our story fits into his Story and is woven in with other stories so big it’s hard to imagine we are part of them.

And yet we are.

“Our story fits into his Story and is woven in with other stories so big it’s hard to imagine we are part of them... And yet we are.“

I still don’t know the “why” of my story. I suppose I don’t have to. You, too, may have a story that has left you wondering why. Maybe the unthinkable has happened to you. Maybe, what you had hoped would happen didn’t. 

Looking back as an adult, it sometimes seemed that my years as an island child were like living in the Garden of Eden. Such a beautiful, pristine dot in the world—a theology of slow living in the making. After college, I thought I would bring my peaceful, slow-paced island life with me as I got married and moved to Georgia. Sixteen years of slow island living in my formative years laid the groundwork for my life; but as often happens, a shattering life moment, like a crashing wave, threatened to tear apart the life I knew.

For so many years after this double tragedy of Brian’s accident and later death, my biggest fear of slowing down came because I knew I’d need to sit with the hard stuff. I knew that I might not get answers.

But mostly, I didn’t want to feel the feelings. 

If you’re like me, there are times when it’s easier to keep busy: head down, putting one foot in front of another. Until we can’t.

“Our bodies and our minds were not meant to keep up this wild pace. What we desperately need is a shift, a collective exhale as we find our way again.“

When we burn out from the busyness and we are forced to stop, this is our invitation to take inventory of all the unsaid, the undone, the unobserved. This divine pause creates time to reflect and gives us the opportunity to shift. It opens up a whole new world if we only let it. Our bodies and our minds were not meant to keep up this wild pace. What we desperately need is a shift, a collective exhale as we find our way again. 

It’s perfectly fine to tell God you are tired and weary and need to exhale and rest. He wants to guide you.

I am more settled these days. I finally accepted that grief and joy do hold hands throughout life—when sea breeze and road rage collide. I understand that God kept me rooted in a nourished space. I was held in those rough waves. On the island. In the hospital. In my sunroom now. Like the curve out on I-85 in Atlanta, we will have unexpected pain ahead with new bends in the road we travel.

However, you and I are being invited to walk with God. Every day. As if we are in the original garden again. A slow, lingering pace.

Being present. Being attentive. Being in true community.

Being at rest in a crazy world.

*Adapted from Live Slowly by Jodi H. Grubbs. ©2024 by Jodi H. Grubbs. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.

---