quiet...again

I find it more than a little humorous that as I log on to this precious place for me on the interwebs that the last time I wrote here was to share about quiet moments.  I laugh to myself and to my sometimes comical Creator because this morning, for the first time in way too long a time, I had a quiet moment and, for the first time in way too long a time, pages of my prayer journal were filled with thoughts and prayers for myself which is a Friday morning tradition.  I can only assume it's a gentle/not so gentle reminder that usually that is indeed from where my struggles arise, from the lack of those crucial quiet moments.  Nevertheless, I will share my pages and pages that contain a most familiar topic to show myself that it most often takes more than one try to learn something and to hopefully encourage you when the same struggle pops up in your life again and again...

It's quiet.  It's the first Friday of school and it's the first day in two months that I've sat alone in a quiet home purposely focused on the most important task at hand, quieting myself in front of my Savior and my God.

Times of study have happened but "quiet times" they were not.  Throwing some convoluted thoughts on paper after reading the daily SRT while Wild Kratts plays ten feet away and there are constant interruptions, cute interruptions but interruptions nonetheless, asking for milky and another flat egg or poptart doesn't fill the soul.

Maybe it should.  Maybe I should be able to have full and meaningful times with God in the midst of all that.  Maybe you are able to and if so I am honestly so happy for you that you can meet with him in the midst of it all because I know for a fact that He IS there in the midst of the chaos, I have found Him and felt Him there numerous times.  But I'm also tired of shoulding myself in regards to this. Maybe one day I'll reach that place that can vividly hear God's call no matter what sounds are all around me, or maybe, just maybe, God designed me to need the quiet.  Maybe He created my soul to grow as I sit and be still without the distractions around me.  Maybe He created some of you like that as well and we're trying so hard to prove we can meet Him in the chaos that we're missing His command to step away.

My favorite things to do should tell me that this is true.  When you spend your college days at bonfires and dinner parties instead of clubs and frat houses it points to the loud and crazy not being your thing.  When your favorite part of visiting NYC is walking around old neighborhoods and shopping flea markets but cringe in the middle Times Square, confirmation is at hand.

I'm a concentrator, a ponderer, a viewer, a listener, a quiet encourager.  Yelling exists, don't get me wrong.  I am not a meek and mild church mouse who acts like the epitome a of perfect, humble Christian.  Anger erupts way too quickly.  Snark comments are constantly being cut off at the tip of my tongue lest too many escape.  Truths that I KNOW that I know go too quickly to the wayside most days as I struggle to abide instead of give in to the desire to just go and get it done myself.  But I also know that when I'm closest with my family, my friends, myself and most importantly the Spirit within me it has happened in the purposeful getting away, the act of seperating myself so that nothing else can grab my focus.

Summer with my boys was wonderful.  The Spirit tugged at my heart and helped my focus not be on the thousands of thigns that could grace the to do list of a self proclaimed decorator and homebody who has been waiting 6 years to get a home.  Instead, I wanted the focus to be on time together, having fun, making memories and showing them love means showing up.  Tasks were done obviously because I'm still me and laundry is always there but it was very refreshing not to worry about the doing, or at least not as much as usual.

However, there was a very important task that slipped almost completely as well.  Remember that not so quiet time I mentioned?  For this girl that is something I can't afford to let go and I'm learning it all to well as I've been trying to pinpoint why recent events that appear very small have sent me spiraling.  Props to my husband who in one short sentence responded to my complaints with "well is it because you haven't gotten away to write?"  Even though my immediate response was denial, which it way too often is, a light dawned/shined direction into my eyes to wake me and and said "well DUH!"

It never happens quickly, that slide backward, because it would be too easily noticed.  No, when Satan wants to screw with you He does it slowly.  So slowly that you don't know what's changing and by the end you know something is different but have no firm proof to back it up.  With the right heart it could be called patience but with the wrong one it's just calculated assault.

My soul needs quiet.  It needs concentration.  It needs purposeful time.  It needs less PBS as background music.  It needs to be still.  What does yours need?