Rehydration
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
I’m writing this from a Renovaré retreat where I’m leading music using a backup guitar.
Eight weeks ago my beloved Taylor guitar — a wedding gift from my wife — was packed up and mailed to a repair person far away. I left the UPS Store feeling like I’d dropped my kid off at summer camp for the first time. You know you’ll see them again and that they are in good hands (you hope) — but it’s still hard to drive away.
A few months prior I had stumbled upon the guitar’s original manual. One page spoke with a particular urgency.
“Symptoms of a Dry Guitar,” read the heading.
“No environmental condition can do more damage to your instrument than low relative humidity.”
I knew that. In theory.
Three years ago we moved from Florida back to Virginia, where winters are drier. Occasionally, I hung a humidifying device in the strings, a half-hearted nod to experts who say guitars dry out. But mine hadn’t dried out. It was different. It was resilient.
I mean, I had noticed a hairline crack forming for years on the guitar’s top — its soundboard and arguably most vital part. On occasion, I ran my fingers over it. It’s just the veneer, I told myself. And for a while the crack was, by all appearances, only on the surface.
Until one day it wasn’t. Dryness took its toll and the wood cracked through.
I sent a picture to the guitar technician who offered the reassuring words, “Ya, that’s pretty bad.”
I told him I needed it back in a couple of months. I have important places to play. His reply was kind but matter-of-fact.
“This guitar didn’t dry out overnight. It won’t rehydrate overnight. I’ll begin the process and the crack will close up over time and then I’ll patch it. It’ll play well but there will be a scar. It probably won’t be ready on your timeline.”
The spiritual parallel isn’t hard to see.
We either care for our souls as Jesus did his — withdrawing with the Father for rehydration and drawing boundaries with others and with work to keep from being sucked dry.
Or we don’t care for our souls — or our care is sporadic — and the cracks form. First, on the surface, then deeper. Eventually they can’t be ignored. So we seek help. We ask God to make us better on our schedule. And God says, I long to restore you but you have to be honest about where you are and hand your life over to me. You didn’t get here overnight. Don’t be surprised if healing takes a while. It probably won’t fit your timeline and you won’t look like you did before. You’ll have some scars. But you’re a valuable instrument. One-of-a-kind, in fact. You’re worth the time and the investment. There’s a song for the world I want to play through you.
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
P.S. I am taking a sabbatical today through mid-June. My prayer is that I’d learn to play, rest, and more fully receive the love of God — all things that don’t (yet) come naturally. Renovaré’s Content Manager Grace Pouch, who curates the list below each week, will pen the intro essays while I’m out.
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
“We must be constantly saying yes to life and no to death…discerning life-giving actions and attitudes from those that are death-giving,” Richard Foster writes in “A Life More Abundant.”
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2.
Thomas Kelly offers a vision of spiritual flourishing in “Life from the Center.”
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3.
This week at Renovaré’s retreat for ministry leaders, Pastor-in-Residence coaches Sean Nemecek and Tim Young offered counsel to those who feel stuck, burned out, or forced out of ministry. Learn more about our friends at PIR.
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4.
In her book You Are a Tree, Joy Clarkson pushes back on our tendency to think of ourselves as machines and leans into metaphors that help us understand our human needs better. Read an excerpt here.
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5.
In a 2022 podcast interview, Nathan Foster spoke with Terry Wardle of Healing Care Ministries about hitting the wall in his performance-driven life and ministry and learning to operate out of grace and freedom.
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6.
Rich Villodas observes that “our lives easily can take us to the brink of burnout.” He invites us to ponder: “What if there were a rhythm of life that could enable us to deeply connect with God, a lifestyle not dominated by hurry and exhaustion but by margin and joy?”
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
WORTH QUOTING
“It is only when we slow down our lives that we can catch up to God.”
– N.T. Wright
TO CONTEMPLATE
Christ in the Winepress
Meister Matthäus c. 1490
(source)
TO PONDER
Do you have symptoms of soul-dryness — any little cracks — that indicate a deeper need for renewal?