Happy Wednesday!
Today, our linkup features the winner of this month’s Guest Contributor contest, Michelle Morin. If you’ve been around the blogsphere for any length of time, you have come across Michelle’s beautiful, insightful posts. This one… hit home for me, on a very personal level. It is sure to bless you too!
Thank you all, for Recharging with us!
Love,
Patricia
From time to time, I experiment with timelessness by taking off my watch.
That naked wrist feels as daring and vulnerable as a bathing suit in a January blizzard, while every glance to check the time quickens my pulse to the rhythm of the question that my heart needs to hear: What’s your hurry?
Contriving a virtue where perhaps there is none, I like to believe that I’ve acquired a “disciplined approach” to time: a “watch your minutes and your hours will take care of themselves” Depression-era frugality with the span of my days.
And it’s true enough that my huge garden and my history of homeschooling four boys have given me plenty of opportunity to fine-tune the art and science of multi-tasking. I’ve folded laundry and entertained a baby while listening to an eight-year-old practicing his piano lesson; I’ve canned green beans while quietly scribbling rhymed clues for a birthday scavenger hunt; I’ve made strawberry jam while preparing a lesson to teach at VBS the next morning.
It can be hazardous to take off your watch when you’re the only one in the house who can tell time – especially if there is a schedule out there somewhere that’s holding together a fragile infrastructure. However, it occurred to me this year (I’m a slow learner) that I’m past the mid-point in this journey of raising boys with more years of parenting in the rear-view mirror than on the road ahead. Furthermore, I’ve also noticed (I said I was a slow learner!) that all my boys are becoming competent and trustworthy — unlikely to eat Drano or to put a fork into an outlet — and are very cued-in to their own schedules and needs. They write their own work hours into pocket-sized planners carried around in man-sized pants. They can make a sandwich if they need to. While this is a salutary thing, it also means that this metamorphosis into independence has happened right under my nose while I have been busily making pizza and grousing about the odd number of socks under the couch.
Did I hurry through potty-training so that I could hurry through tooth fairy visits and multiplication flash cards?
Have I hurried through bedtime prayers and the blessing song so that I could hurry through curfews and car keys?
What’s my hurry?
I want the volume of this question to drown out the ticking of the clock and the notion that no matter how much I accomplish in a day, it’s not enough. I want to tear down the giant parentheses that I’ve erected around my minutes so that I can listen to the person who is talking to me and be all there; so that if someone has a great idea, it doesn’t have to elbow its way through the web of plans that I’ve already solidified.
I am celebrating (and at the same time coercing myself into) this healthier relationship with time by:
- Purchasing a smaller day planner. Fewer lines each day means fewer tasks-bump it to the next day or leave it undone. An over-long do-list leaves no space for a be-list.
- Going for a daily walk with a lumbering St. Bernard. Sometimes I bring memorized verses on 3×5 cards to review, but sometimes my brain is a blue screen of invitation for God’s thoughts to permeate.
- Reading Scripture out loud when I’m alone in the house (or waiting in the mini-van) which forces me to slow down and to form the words with my mouth, to hear myself saying truth, to savor the syllables and gain the grace that slows my pulse.
As I turn the pages and ponder the words that God has given, I find the truth that my time, like my next breath, is a gift from God, and He owns forever. So, what’s my hurry?
To gain the luxury of laughing over shared silliness and the comfort of simply sharing space with my favorite people, can I resist the greed and impatience of a life that is lived to the ticking off of tasks? Click To TweetNext, next, next, next, next, next, next …
I’ve observed (and complained) that it is the nature of God to do many things very slowly. He takes all the long leisure of eternity to accomplish His purposes, so who am I to act as if time were something to be hoarded? God may require that I walk when I’d prefer to run, and, as Shepherd of my soul, He may say that it’s time for me to lie down.
What’s your hurry, soul? Read the words of Psalm 31:14-15 and mean it:
“But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD;
I say, ‘You are my God.’
My times are in Your hand.”
Lord, teach me the wisdom of conducting my life according to Your timetable, for You are the One who holds time. @MicheleDMorin Click To Tweet
Michele Morin is a teacher, reader, writer, and gardener who blogs at Living Our Days. She has been married to an unreasonably patient husband for nearly 30 years, and their four children are growing up at an alarming rate. She has two adorable grandchildren and is active in educational ministries with her local church. Her writing has appeared at SheLoves Magazine, The Perennial Gen, (in)courage, and elsewhere. Michele loves hot tea and well-crafted sentences, poems that stop her in her tracks and days at the ocean with the whole family. She laments biblical illiteracy, finds joy in sitting around a table surrounded by women with open Bibles, and advocates for the prudent use of “little minutes.” You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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LINKUP PARTY is open! Today, our guest @MicheleDMorin shares a compelling message about time, and how we are spending... or wasting our days. JOIN US? Click To Tweet
I took my watch off 16 years ago when my husband was dying of cancer…Never to be worn again… time was too precious to count!
Great post Michele!
Sharing “Home sweet home”
Jennifer
My watch is off again, too, Jennifer, and I honor you for coming to the sweet conclusion that time is just so very precious that it’s beyond measuring.
Blessings to you!
This may just be about my favorite post of yours, Michele. But then, many of yours are my “favorite” 🙂 You have shared so much wisdom in this one. Here’s to shorter lists, longer walks, more quiet, and only His timetable. Joining you in taking off my watch!
Time and I have an uneasy relationship, and it really does help me to take off my watch. Maybe it’s symbolic, but it does help my brain to slow down and be present in THIS moment. When my husband prayed this morning, he gave our day to God with the addendum that “this day is the only only one we have,” and I’m still holding onto that thought (alongside this post today) as a huge reality check.
Michele this is my new favorite post of yours, which I do seem to say often! Thank you thank you for sharing this wisdom so beautifully and aptly. Taking this one so very personally (in a good way)!
It always amazes me when God uses my weaknesses to strike a chord in another person’s heart. Joining you, Bethany, in asking God to “teach us to number our days,” so that we will be doing it according to His measuring stick and not ours.
Amen! Thank you!
Michele, as always your words resonated with me. I’ve asked myself many times why I am in a rush? I used to interpret Moses’ words, asking God to teach us to number our days so we could gain a heart of wisdom, as there is so much to do in so little time. But I think your take on time is better. Savor each stage of life, because they fly by.
Yes, they sure do fly. And sitting in this empty-ing nest and watching grandchildren become more and more adorable every day, I don’t want to miss one minute of God’s good timing.
“What’s the hurry?” Exactly, Michele. We live in a face-paced, inpatient culture. Yet, you bring this idea down to the everyday grind of living and our family. Why do we want to hurry past milestones or rush the years on by for ourselves and our loved ones? This is powerful, ” I want to tear down the giant parentheses that I’ve erected around my minutes so that I can listen to the person who is talking to me and be all there; so that if someone has a great idea, it doesn’t have to elbow its way through the web of plans that I’ve already solidified.”
I ran into this very struggle this morning, Karen, with a phone call from one of my sons that came at a time when I felt as if I should be “accomplishing something.” (Whatever that means??)
I’m realizing that I tend to write about the things I’m struggling toward, and this is likely to be a life long writing project for me!
Michelle,
I am so grateful that you joined us today! This is such a beautiful post, and very needed this day and age. Several years ago God convicted me to “drop” the less important things whenever my children need me. Slowing down is a hard task for a Martha like me, but I am grateful that God keeps tugging in my heart to stop the clock… and smell the roses :-).
Thanks again for accepting the invitation to share your beautiful gift with our community.
Blessings,
It never fails to inspire me whenever I get the chance to be spend time in someone’s writing “guest room,” Patricia! And I love your imagery here, because I think in order to really smell the roses we have to do it without the ticking of the clock in our ears. So, even as my kids all grow into adults, I want to put on the brakes for them, to listen with both ears to the stories about their world, because they are an invitation into their lives.
Thank you for curating this beautiful community of readers, writers, thinkers, and lovers!
I confess – I’m a slave to time and I don’t know what my hurry is. As a mother of 4, this slavery is compounded. I recognize it and I don’t like it.
So God continues to work on me in this regard. His timing is not ours and I’m grateful.
This post resonated with me in so many ways.
Oh, Nylse, I hear you! A slave and proud of it at times! I’ve been so tied to the ticking of the clock and even prideful of my productivity and efficiency, forgetting that God did not intend mothering or relationships to be happening on a schedule!
Thanks for raising your hand today and saying, “Me too!” It’s so much easier to share our stories when we know they are not being met with judgment!
Beautiful post, Michele. I occasionally experiment with no watch as well. And it’s hard! I’m too addicted to watching the clock. I definitely need to take your advice here and lose the hurry. There’s no rush. Thanks, friend.
It’s an on-going battle for me, Lisa.
Now that we are grandmothers, we realize how quickly those little people change. That in itself is a great motivator to slow down and relish a few things that we may have rushed through the first time.
I hope you get some rest for Mother’s Day, I was tired from reading all that you did. I know I did the same in family day care, but He still redeems our time, all we can do is make the most of it.
Thanks, Rebecca, for that thought about rest! For me, Mother’s Day weekend is going to be graduation weekend as my son finishes up his college years! So much to celebrate, and it’s going to be wonderful just to spend the time with family.
Beautifully written Michele. I love your style.
Though I’ve written on this subject many a time, I can’t seem grasp it. I just keep running . It’s in my DNA I think. I do take time for pleasurable things but my type A personality guilts me for it. What’s a person to do?
OH, do I EVER hear you!!
I remember when my kids were all tiny, I was talking to a friend on the phone, also a mum of very young kids, and she said, “Sometimes I just sit on the couch and watch them play.”
That was an absolute REVELATION to me. Really? You don’t fold laundry while you’re watching them play??
You don’t read a book and look up at them now and then?
I think some of us will always struggle with the need to multi-task and to measure our productivity, and so we need to be certain that our worth is based in our identity in Christ rather than in the check marks on our do-list, because sometimes, the most productive thing we can do is . . .nothing!
So much wisdom in Michele’s post. I long for a return to margin in the schedules of me and my friends. Thank you. laurensparks.net
Margin is such a good word for protecting the things that are ours to do while excluding all the things that steal our attention and add to our stress and hurry.
Thanks, Lauren, for reading and taking time to add your thoughts.