A major writers’ conference concluded a few days ago. It held so many awe-inspiring moments, high-intensity meetings, life- or career-changing insights, and God-sightings that it was like the exhilaration of jumping off the high dive, plunging deep into the refreshing waters, but realizing it is taking longer than expected to surface!

Many events in life–both the deliriously happy and the deliriously sober–give that perception. Childbirth. Seeing your first book in print. Success in a risky venture. Knowing it’s “real love.” Accompanying a parent to the edge of eternity and having to let go of the frail hand at that final moment. We kick and press the water with all our strength, but the surface where we can take a breath again seems too far from where we are.

If you’re like me, when we break through the surface and suck in that life-preserving gulp of air, when our heart rate returns to normal, when we realize we’re back in the real world, that world quickly takes over with its frantic activity and conjoined responsibilities that defy separation.

But through the psalmist, God said, “Selah.” In essence, that means, “Stop and think about that.”

Have you, too, sometimes skipped that part? I long to build into my life Selah Pockets–the reflective time that contemplates what just happened, that burns it into my memory and reminds me of the wonder just experienced.

Selah. Stop and think about that.