Time

I spend lots of time hurrying.  I can't tell you how many times a week I say things like:

"Get your shoes on!  We are going to be late."
"Put on your straps.  We are late"
"Why are you still eating.  You should be brushing your teeth so we can leave!"

I could go on and on.  Just writing those things sounds awful so I can't imagine how they must sound to my sweet kiddos.  I feel like I need to hurry too much to get somewhere.  It is why I think I felt so strongly that my One Word for the year is PAUSE.  I need to stop and slow down.

Ever since I decided 2011 would be the year to PAUSE, I have read more blogs about time and/or time related topics.  I think it is funny when you are open to seeing or hearing something, it is everywhere.  God has opened my mind to something and now my eyes and ears are filled with PAUSE.

I read this from a blog last week and just loved it:

While reading Anne Voskamp’s poetic book  One Thousand Gifts, I found myself deeply convicted by the chapter entitled “A Sanctuary of Time.”  Anne quotes a pastor who was asked his most profound regret in life. He answers,

“Being in a hurry.  Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing…Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.” (p.65)

My goodness!  That just sums up how I feel some days...most days if I am being honest.  I wonder what is lying in my wake....what have I not entered.  Could it be a smile from one of my kiddos, a room picked up without being asked, a bird singing, a flower blooming, a hand wanting to be held....who knows.

Time is fleeting.  Who know what tomorrow will hold or if there will be a tomorrow.  Today is what I have been given and today's 24 hours are what I must cherish.