Rainy days are miserable when I have to go out shopping, when I am on vacation in Branson, out camping or when one of the kids has a field trip that is going to get cancelled.
Rainy days are wonderful when I can sleep late, stay in my jammies, quietly get caught up on some work and don’t have to go anywhere .
Today has been a wonderful rainy day.
My blog has been silent as of late. It’s because I’ve been busy with other things. But not the kind of stressful pull-my-hair-out-jump-off-a-cliff-I-want-to-die kind of busy. Just productively, contentedly busy doing things that I love.
A welcome change.
Ever since I visited my friend Tracey a month ago, I’ve been comparing my life to hers. Not in an envious way. But in a let’s-learn-something-here way. Unlike me, she doesn’t have a cell phone plastered to her side. Unlike me, she doesn’t compulsively check email all the time. Unlike me, she isn’t thinking constantly about ways to help mobilize an untold number of people on missionary journeys in 2012 and how to best train the ones under my specific care going to Malawi while telling my own kids to go watch another movie because I’m working. But she’s busy in her own way. She homeschools. She sits on the floor for hours and plays with toys. She has a brilliant child that has emotional needs I have never had to consider. She has a husband with an insanely long commute that can sometimes have long hours. She teaches dance. She is first to volunteer when someone in her church or community has a need. But she has this happiness, this peaceful calm about her.
It simultaneously makes me want to either sit at her feet or pull her hair out.
After a particularly rambly email to her describing one of my most busy days of late and my difficulty in slowing down enough to breathe, here is what she said back to me.
Did you make it through all your appointments for that busy day you told me about?? That was certainly a lot! No wonder you feel drained sometimes. I will be praying for your request that you can slow down and enjoy moments amidst all the busyness. Sounds like you are looking for a state of peacefulness. This is very much in the forefront of my brain right now after two separate experiences recently. The first happened when I had my roommate from college over for a visit…She and I sat up talking until 1:30 in the morning. A bunch of our discussion was about living in the present...not the past...beating ourselves up or wishing things had been different and not about always planning the future and wishing for more. My friend had been reading a book about living in the NOW. Taking in the truth of what is happening and enjoying it. Or it if it's stressful, just dealing with that situation at that time and not fretting over what might be stressful later. Then, I joined a mom's Bible study group and they/we were having a similar discussion about how women are just really good at getting worked up over situations that usually work themselves out...that we need to be seeking a Biblical definition of peace, not a worldly one which is the absence of conflict. Anyway, sounds like that's what you are searching for too. I'm so good at worrying about things that are not likely to happen; lots of what ifs... that I waste time and energy on instead of living now and having a sense of peacefulness that all is well now. Anyway, that was a lot of words to say I'll be praying.
It was what I needed to hear, and so now it is confession time.
Hi, my name is Beth, and I am looking for a state of peacefulness. I want to live in the present, in the NOW. I want to quit letting the PAST define who I am. I want to quit letting the FUTURE dictate my day. I want God’s peace, which has nothing to do with conflict, but all about trusting in HIM to work through the difficulties as they come for my good.
And on this lazy, rainy day I know I am not the only one.
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