I don't wanna be a busy girl.
I don't wanna be wrapped in the trap of a chaotic world, no, no.
As my fifth album begins to take shape in my head, I found myself singing this song in the car the other day. I wrote it several years ago as a personal reminder to reject the chaotic lifestyle so many of us lead, to discover and rediscover simple joys, to "dance, sing, lay in the grass."
This summer had many such moments to be treasured and I'm so thankful for camera's remembering eye.
But a new season is upon us. The sparse summer calendar has been replaced by a dense forest of lines and circles forming tiny words and numbers that suddenly redefine our lives. For example, every Thursday box through May looks like this: 8:30 this, 2:00 that, 3:15 this, 7:30 that. Every commitment carefully considered, prayed over, agreed to by the family, but multiplied by 5 of us, and I begin to wonder if we will not soon feel like a blur...or worst yet, slaves to the schedule.
It is not a good feeling to be a slave to anything but Christ. You know when you have given up your freedom...it becomes a tightness in your gut; you snap, crackle, and pop at your kids while putting on a carefree face to your peers, you scramble to sweep up the marbles of your day that spill and scatter across the floor.
The litmus test is food. The slave grabs for salt and sweet and caffeine to keep her going. She feeds her family overprocessed, undernourishing foods for convenience.
She lets her quiet time with God slide so she can respond to one more e-mail and google one more thing. Her house is disordered. Her kids fight. Her husband is lonely.
OK, that was hard to write. The mirror is a brutually honest friend. My interior is scarred from balls and chains.
I am not at that point, however, nor do I have to get there. No matter the level of commitments, I can keep the lens in focus by asking myself a few questions each day.
Fill: What time do I need to rise to meet with God?
Nurture: Who needs me the most today?
Nourish: What am I going to feed my family today?
Order: What are a few things we all can do to get the house in order?
Refill: When can I "lay in the grass," even for the briefest of moments?
God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction. Psalm 23, The Message
When that angry, controlling knot of an attitude begins to tighten like a noose, I can pause, lean into the truth, lighten the yoke, and come back to the greatest of all commands: Love. Love Him. Love them. Love the least of them. It's what sets the slave free. It's what brings the subject into focus and let's the rest pleasantly blur.
I can take two ways to work on my morning drive - one takes a bridge over an inlet, and from that bridge I can see the sunrise over Galveston Bay. Farther on down the road I can look back over Clear Lake and see the bridge I passed over earlier, and the sunrise shining off the lake. There are boats on the lake - some people are fishing. There's hardly a day that goes by that I don't wish I could take one day off without falling behind, one day off with my wife to do nothing at all but talk and sip coffee, to get home really early and play catch with the kids. And, hardly a day goes by when I don't wish I could be on one of those boats early on a weekday morning, with a line in the water, and to see the _entire_ sunrise. I wonder how I got so busy that it's sometimes hard to wedge 8 hours of work in-between everything else we have to do. Every once in a while my wife says, "Stop! What's going to happen if you don't do task XYZ, and instead just sit down?" And, nothing bad happens. So, I need to remind myself once in a while to turn off the cell phone, and sit down, or even procrastinate! Maybe more importantly, I've resisted the urge to take on more tasks, more responsibilities, and to try and delegate more instead of trying to do everything myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's an always difficult balancing act and I agree: oftentimes, it's time with God that gets pushed out.
My head is spinning after a day off yesterday of all the things I need to accomplish at work today. I remind myself over and over to FOCUS. My quiet time slips by and I am distracted. What will it really matter if I get to work early or not?
ReplyDeleteThis post was exactly what I needed to read this morning. Praise the Lord for days off, for peace and rest in the midst of the storm, and for setting us free!