Life is Not an Emergency

Seven days into reading the book (One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp), and already I can see my perspective on life is changing.  I'm noticing more.  Things I hadn't really taken the time to notice before are standing out; and I am searching for the gifts . . . . they are all around me.  In fact, they abound!  Details are becoming more clear.  People are becoming more real.  God's Word is more alive than ever before.  All this because I have decided to intentionally seek out what was right under my nose all along--God's grace gifts.

One of my favorite chapters so far has been regarding time.  As a person who likes to have a schedule, hates to be late and utilizes calendars, planning tools and lists (usually in physical form but sometimes in her head), this chapter was a good one for me to read.  I am going to quote a couple of passages from the chapter, and maybe you'll be impacted too.

"I speak it to God:  I don't really want more time; I just want enough time.  Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done --- yesterday.  In a world . . . with its 'live in the moment' buzz phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync? . . . I just want time to do my one life well."

"Time is a relentless river.  It rages on, a respecter of no one.  And this, this is the only way to slow time:  When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here.  I can slow the torrent by being all here.  I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment.  And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter.  And time slows.  Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time's river slows, slows, slows. . . . Here is the only place I can love Him.  I have time for God . . . I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fibre of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment.  I hunger to taste life.  God."

I have wasted so much time in my life on fruitless endeavors.  On the flip-side, I have also accomplished much with my time.  Keeping my priorities in order has been one of my biggest personal challenges this past year.  Ensuring that my life has balance in all important areas can be a struggle.  There are many demands on my time, and I have now decided to take on the attitude that Life is Not an Emergency.  I've often lived in such a way that evoked the message of life being an emergency.  My emergency.  My agenda.  My time.  I wish to savour the moments; soak up the world around me; enjoy the people God has placed in my life; spend time immersed in His word, because that is, afterall, where true life is found.

"Without God's word as a lens, the world warps."

Today, I am thankful for:

19.  The gift of Dirty Dishes, because it means I have food to eat.

20.  The gift of Folding Laundry, because it means that I have clothes to wear and children to dress.

21.  The gift of A Messy Family Room, because it means that other people live here with me.

*All quotes in today's post are from Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts.