My kids are outside playing today. It’s a gorgeous day with a cool breeze and a bright sun. When I first shooed them out the door my 7 year old said, “Can we bring the iPad outside so we can have some music?” I hesitated. I really wanted them to just play. To explore, imagine, pretend and just be. I told her “Not today”, and she skipped outside. They are now playing Flying Ace and taking off from their made up airport.
I think most of us would agree that kids need to just play. They need to make mudpies, pretend to be soldiers and play house. Kids need some quiet downtime to think and wonder.
What I am asking myself today is, do I take time to just be? Do I explore? imagine? pretend? think? wonder?
Usually, I’m toting around my Kindle to get in a new book, grabbing my phone to start up a new podcast or scroll through Instagram. When the kids are in bed, I’m catching up on the DVR or cleaning out my inbox. When do I ever just sit and get quiet?
And what would happen if I did? Would I create the grown-up equivalent of a backyard battle, a cross-country adventure through our woods or a twig and pine cone airplane hangar?
How can mamas keep quiet in the middle of the noise that is motherhood?
Practice nothing.
Have you ever heard of a savasana? It’s a yoga pose where you lay on your back, close your eyes and are quiet for 20 minutes or more. That’s it.
I don’t know about you, but it kinda makes me nervous to think about laying still for 20 minutes. My mind would be going a mile a minute and I don’t think I’d actually relax!
Jen from Every Breath I Take says this kind of relaxation is a learned skill. It shouldn’t make you stressed or agitated, in fact it can, “reveal the anxiety and tension that you are normally able to ignore“. I don’t want to ignore anxiety–I want to face it and work on it. I need to practice relaxing so I can focus on that tension.
Plan to stop.
In Jen Hatmaker’s book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny of Excess, she relates rest and stress-free living to the Israelites’ weekly practice of Sabbath rest. They had to plan for their Sabbath day—get ready to have a whole day of no work, no meal cooking, no caring for animals, no sewing, no working. They set aside the we-have-got-to-get-this-done and put a priority on rest.
Isn’t that a lovely thought? Making rest a priority? Planning for it the way you plan any part of your week? Let’s face it, “rest” has never been on my to-do list. Maybe it should be.
So, I’m asking myself again, will I take time to just be? to explore? imagine? pretend? think? wonder? Will I choose to rest, recenter and regain peace this week? Will I look for some time to rest?
How do you fit quiet into your days and weeks? How does quiet benefit you?
Originally published at LifeYourWay.net
Hi Amanda 🙂 I’m posting here instead the link- hope that’s ok! Towards the end of last year, I could feel Holy Spirit prompting me to ‘simplify’ for this new year. I put a lot of pressure/stress/ etc on myself to do what I feel like I should be doing as a wife, mother, woman. Sadly, most of the things I pressure myself to do are not reflecting the Word but rather the world. I was trying to blend my Jesus fanatic self into a neat little package that blends nicely into the world. Not good.
So with Holy Spirits help, I’m slowing getting rid of the junk in my life. All of those little things that I didn’t realize were sucking the life out of me, breath by breath… also, things that were toxic and feeding the sin I try so desperately to avoid. I know you usually link your blogs to your FB update and the reason I am just seeing this is because on Feb 26th, I deactivated my FB page. *sigh of relief* I didn’t have a huge amount of friends on FB (prob about a 100 and most were family and friends from church) and while I miss a few of them, I’ve come to realize that, in fact, there is life after FB. I deactivated for some amount of time that I wasn’t sure of, and now that it’s been almost 2 weeks, I just don’t see myself reactivating it again. It’s amazing what a time and joy stealer it was, even though none of my friends are ‘bad people’- in fact, other than some family, all are Christians! I realized that while I would be so busy reading the snippets of other’s life and posting thoughts/verses/updates of my own, I was missing out on living. I was missing out on living in the moment with my 2 boys, age 3 and 6mo, that are growing so fast and missing out on that precious time with my husband that I seem to rarely get because of work. That one simple decision prompted by the Holy Spirit has freed my already crowded mind considerably.
This has carried over to other things that were choking me in our effort to simplify and rid myself of junk. My Pinterest has been wiped of much– boards, my pins, those I follow– the app would be removed from my phone except I do have some recipes on it I use and reference my phone when cooking. Otherwise, I don’t get on it much at all. I’ve unsubscribed to all of the junk e-mails I would get (I didn’t realize how many I had coming in!)- the only e-mail I get daily is my biblegateway.com verse of the day. I hear my phone buzz less and rarely have to check my e-mail. My PC homepage was Yahoo which is filled with a plethora of news and junk- I’ve changed to Google. All I need is a search box- no frills, no news, no gossip.
At this point, I’m on a journey with my sweet Father to purge my life of what I don’t need so I can be filled with what I do need: more of Him- His love, His joy, His peace. I want even more Jesus in my life. I want to be able to say (and more importantly, mean with all of my heart) that Jesus is all I need. That my hope, confidence, security, love, joy, approval, peace, provision— everything I could ever need and want is in Him alone.
I’m learning to be still and know He is God. I’m taking the Sabbath very seriously because I struggle with rest and I feel like I should constantly be on the go. I’m choosing a day which is usually Sunday, although my husband works some Sundays, to rest. We go to/serve in church, come home for lunch, and play/rest/nap until our small group that night. I try to make it a point to do no cleaning, no laundry- just basic things to get through the day. I know we are no longer under the law of the OT, but God took the Sabbath very seriously with the Israelites- don’t even pick up sticks! He was not kidding about resting. That’s why it’s important for everyone to take a day of rest- whatever day of the week that may be (I know many people have to work on Sundays).
I have found that in my quiet time with Father, after I lay out any other needs that I may not have prayed about during the rest of the day, I ask Him to lead my time- what to pray about, what we should work on, what I should read in the Word- and so many times He has told me to ‘rest’. I sometimes tend to push back because I’ll say, ‘no! I finally have a few moments of peace and quiet to talk with You about _____ , so we should work it out now!’ Yeah, He just says again ‘rest….’ And I quiet down and submit- and many times fall asleep but that’s perfectly fine. He knows exactly what I need and when I need it.
In our culture, rest is something we have to learn and allow Holy Spirit to guide us in to. He alone will teach us how to quiet our minds and have His rest. We just have to be willing to do whatever He tells us, no matter how against the grain it may be, silly it may sound or how much we don’t want to do it. We will truly find that in Him, every single need will not go unmet.
Sorry for the book- just sharing a small (yes, truly it is small compared to the waves crashing on my heart lately!) portion of my journey of quieting myself to allow Him to have His way in all of my life.
Blessings to you!