1. My kids are big.
I know … this seems like a strange thing to learn in a month, but it’s true.
Every year we take the same picture, and every year I’m shocked by how much my kiddos have grown. But this year, this picture almost made me cry. My kids aren’t just growing; They’re getting big.
Have you ever looked back on a season that for a time seemed like it would never end, yet you wonder how you got through it so quickly? That’s where I am with my kids. They’re big and I don’t know how we got here.
Today my youngest lost his second tooth. My middle begged her dad to take her hunting. My oldest completed a health project on teenaged skin care. This is the season we are in, and I couldn’t love it more.
2. Finding quiet is necessary and good.
By nature, I’m a home body. But when we got away last month for a little weekend by the lake, I realized how important it is for me to intentionally carve out time for quiet, even if that means getting away. Finding quiet doesn’t necessarily require distance, but this time it did.
After less than two minutes of sitting alone by the lake, I felt myself unraveling. I took a breath as the tears came and dropped my head. Quiet found its way through the noise in my mind and a deep calm washed over me. It was a like a deep breath for my soul.
“Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.” Psalm 62:5 NLT
We live in a world addicted to noise and activity, but what we’re really starving for stillness and quiet. So, may I ask you …
Are you acquainted with quiet? Can you look it square in the face without fear, without wondering what it might uncover? Do you think quiet is worth searching for, embracing and protecting?
I dare you to find your own quiet. When you do, I think you’ll find it to be necessary and oh so good for you too.
3. I need to be more desperate.
One morning, while I was praying through my current writing project and an upcoming retreat, my words turned to desperation. In the middle of drying my hair, I told The LORD how badly I needed Him, that I couldn’t write or speak without Him, and that I’ve got nothing apart from Him. As I continued my hair drying in silence, God’s firm but gentle voice echoed in my head, and I ran to write His words down.
Your writing is not more sacred than your living.
Your holy work doesn’t begin when you open your computer.
It begins when you open your eyes.
{Gulp.}
That desperation you feel when you write and when you speak is right and good … but don’t you realize that you need me just the same for living?
{Cue tears.}
Listen to 2 Timothy 2:20-21 from The Message: “In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets – some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.”
In other words, if we want to be useful to our Master all the time – if we want to be prepared for every good work – if we’re going to go about any kind of holy living – then our desperation begins at sun-up, when we open our eyes.
I don’t know about you, but I need to be more desperate.
4. Back to school doesn’t have to mean back to crazy.
Because I’m a huge lover of our slow-paced, easy-going summer, this was me the night before the first day of school.
In my head and as a matter of habit, back to school means back to crazy, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t have to.
Yes. Back to school does mean back to a schedule. It does means back to alarm-ringing, kid-waking, lunch-packing, and car-pool driving, but it doesn’t have to mean crazy. Crazy, I choose … and I don’t have to choose crazy.
Which led me to my next discovery …
5. My plate is already full.
You know that thing people say after they pile their plate high with way too much food, then realize they can’t eat it all … “My eyes were bigger than my stomach!” Well, I’m done with living a “my eyes are bigger than my stomach” kind of life.
When the kids started back to school (Yes! All three of them), I decided that I’m not choosing crazy, so I looked in the mirror and practiced my brave-faced “no”.
It’s not that I’m too busy – it’s that I’m resisting busy all together. Instead, I’m choosing small so that I can tend large. Yes, indeed. My plate is already full.
What did you learn in August?
Dagmar Mueller says
Thanks girl!!! Great post… what I learned… I learned I am done with moving around. Please Lord let me be able to stay for once more than 3 years in one place! And quiet yes, quiet I miss it sooooo much! Ready for it once kids get out into school and preschool…. 🙂
Carrie Rogers says
Yes! And overseas moving, nonetheless! Glad to have you back friend.