Slow down, you're doing fine. You can't be everything you wanna be before your time…

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Billy Joel sing those lyrics. But one random day, while I was making dinner, they hit me in a way they hadn't before.

Life has a way of feeding you lies. For the past few years, I've felt an immense amount of pressure as I've taken step after step of faith: leaving my career, navigating difficult relationships, jumping into full-time self-employment.

It's a life I never envisioned for myself, but one I knew, 110%, the Lord had envisioned for me. And in all of it, the loudest lie was a quiet one: you're behind.

Slow down, you're doing fine.

It was permission I didn't know my heart was longing for. And as it kept stirring, I wondered: maybe someone else needs the reminder too. That's where this newest design began.

I paired the words with a scene that brings me peace and slowness: tea.

The Gift Hiding in the Ritual

I've always been an iced coffee girlie, but I came to appreciate tea, and all the rituals that come with it, after visiting Sri Lanka last fall. And the more I made it, the more I realized the process itself was teaching me something.

There's something about tea that forces you to slow down. The ritual of making it. The way different herbs shift your mood and your health. You could spend an hour crafting the perfect chai or a few moments steeping a bag in hot water, but either way, there's one constant. A constant that can feel painful, but is also incredibly inviting once you understand that it's a gift.

That constant is waiting.

When Waiting and Urgency Collide

I don't know about you, but experiencing waiting and urgency at the same time feels like the worst-case scenario. And yet I often hit the urgent button when my patience is gone, in hopes of accelerating the wait time. It's the one thing I have control over. I can control my pace, go faster, do more, push harder.

And yet, I mistake the process of waiting for falling behind, not realizing that it's costing me the gifts life's trying to offer me.

Funny enough, this was something I learned over several disappointing iced lattes in Sri Lanka.

The first thing you need to know about Sri Lanka is that it's hot. Very hot.

So hot that an iced coffee doesn't stand a chance. I learned fast that ice outside a freezer melts in about five minutes. Coffee can be very expensive too, and just harder to access. The coffee, although created with so much love and hospitality, was just not what I had back in the U.S. And the ritual I'd built my mornings around back home was suddenly out of reach.

That's when I started to notice the ease of tea. Even the tea on our 11-hour flight was incredible (thank you, Dilmah). I found myself reaching for it, enjoying it, and eventually asking for it instead of coffee.

The invitation I Almost Missed

It sounds so silly, but that small shift made me realize how much I'd been working against life's invitation. I'd been so busy demanding the thing I thought I needed that I almost missed the gift I was being offered.

Life was inviting me to embrace a new culture and a new environment.

I had two choices..

1. I could keep asking for my iced latte, the thing I'd come to love in the U.S. Or
2. I could give in, embrace this new culture, and accept what life was offering, knowing it was life's absolute best.

And that's where this idea of waiting and urgency came full circle for me.

You can't accept an invitation you're too rushed to notice.

Waiting can often feel like an endless obstacle. But the truth is, it isn't. Waiting creates the space needed for you to say yes to something new... something you might not have said yes to before.

The reminder

That's the purpose of this design.

It’s a reminder to slow down because life’s invitations are worth noticing and worth slowing down for.  It’s the reminder that any demand, pressure or urgent feeling is usually a lie that rarely delivers the reward it promises.

It’s a reminder to soak in and appreciate what’s right in front of you, to trust in the process and trust in life's invitations because it will all work out in the end. Even when it doesn’t look like it will. Even when it doesn’t feel like it will.

My hope and prayer is that this design encourages you in the way you need to receive it or your friend needs to receive it.

Wherever you find yourself today, I hope you remember that the pressure you feel isn't yours to carry.

Slow down. You're doing just fine.

Journal Prompts For You

• What does slowing down look like for me today?

• What lie is prompting the urgency I feel?