Monday, September 27, 2010

Day 270 - Slowing Down

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Hello! Sarah here again. I'm a night blogger and Beth is a morning blogger, so you'll have to pardon the lateness of my posting. I'm honored that Beth trusts me to do some guest writing for her.

Sooooo...this may be TMI, but I had a stomach virus this past weekend (yes, my family is too good about sharing). I've been thinking today about how being sick has given me the opportunity to slow down. I am normally a moving/doing type of person, so being sick throws a massive wrench into my well-laid plans. It's made me have to sit and let my body go through the natural process of expelling germs and toxins. I'm often incredibly impatient, but for some reason this weekend I just decided to let things happen and to relax and heal instead of stressing about what I wasn't doing.

Sometimes little illnesses like this are a blessing in disguise. They are your body's way (and sometimes God's way) of telling you to slow down and to quiet yourself. I need to be reminded to rest and take care of myself, so once the bad part of the tummy bug cleared up, I took a day for myself--watching football, having lunch and hanging out drinking coffee with friends, and then watching more football. It was a great day and I found myself feeling renewed and refreshed...especially because my team won (GO, STEELERS!).

So today I'm grateful for...

Chillin' out. I am learning to live in a state of rest. It's a hard thing for me to do, but I firmly believe that it's God's desire for us to cease striving and to be still, no matter the circumstances that are swirling around us.

Learning. I think that you can't really be a good teacher unless you're willing to keep learning. So in the past couple of years, I have begun to open myself to learning--about myself, about other people, about life and about God. Learning includes failure, and (believe me) I've become welll-accustomed to it. God loves me anyway, though, and so do the people I care about most.

Lasagna. There are healing properties in comfort food.

My husband. He is a HARD worker. After being laid off for two and a half months, he got a 6-week job that started two weeks ago (truthfully, I was bummed about him getting a job). He's working the night shift doing pipe fitting at a power plant. There are hundreds of thousands of people who rely on this power plant, so when they have to have a shutdown to fix the plumbing and fit new pipes, it's a big deal. He drives to work an hour and a half, works 10 hours overnight and then drives back home for another hour and a half. He doesn't complain. He puts his nose to the grindstone and does what needs to be done. He's the type of man who gets requested on lots of different job sites just because of his attitude and his work ethic. I'm proud to be the wife of a hard working man. He's a man of integrity and he believes in doing whatever he needs to do to take care of his family.

My bickering kids. I know that someday when they're grown, I will miss their little piddly fights and I'll miss hearing their voices. I try to live in the moment because I know my time with my little boys is going to go too quickly. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. God has blessed me with two wonderful kids, and (no matter how often they fight) I love them more than my own life. I'm so grateful for all the things God has taught me about seeing life with childlike eyes.

My hope is that you make the decision to live NOW--not in the past and not in the future. Time flies, even when you're not having fun, so do your best to make the best of every moment. Tell someone you love that you are thankful for them. Be specific about what it is that you appreciate about them. You may never have the chance to tell them again.

1 comment:

  1. Ms. Amy is right. You are brilliant and inspiring. Thank you so much for all you've done here.

    Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to follow you three!

    ReplyDelete