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| (Photo is my own) |
When last have you been on a mountain top like this one?
And I don't even mean a physical one. More like a spiritual one. A moment of peace. A moment of rest. A moment of true closeness to God. Oh, how wonderful clear the view is up there! Mountain
tops are something special, especially for stressed out moms! On a mountain
top your worries are far below. You can hear every
sound and God’s voice is so much easier to hear. Not like in the valley where all the hustling and bustling of our daily chores tends to drown out what we so dearly need - REST. I have just been on such a
mountain top during a short trip to Germany and back and in my next few posts I
will share with you the incredible sights and wonders I have seen. But I also
learnt that as beautiful as they are, we do not get to live on mountain tops.
Eventually we have to make our way down to the valley and go and take care of
our loved ones again.
Then,
on the way down from the mountain top we pick up our “hula hoops”, one by one.
There are many hoops in the life of a mother…the wife hoop, the mother hoop,
friend hoop and writer hoop, peacemaker and soccer coach hoop, cooking and
cleaning hoop and sometimes many others. We usually cannot keep them all going
at once, unless of course you are the leader of the local cheer leading squad,
which I am NOT. So when I try, out of my own strength, they end up colliding and smash to the ground.
Often, there is just not enough of me to go around. Our busy lives are filled
with hula hoops, responsibilities, important things that need our attention and
often we are frantically trying to keep them in motion. The New Testament story
of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 so beautifully shows the difference between a
woman who is trying to keep the hoops going and one who dropped them in order
to enjoy…
Do
you take time to drop your hoops? Do you get up an hour early, before your
husband and kids need your attention and spend some time tending to your inner
self? I never used to either. Mornings are not my best time. But I have learnt
that all the good things in my day flow out of that little moment alone with
God. So now, I crawl out of bed if I
have to and go and make myself a cup of coffee and then I sit and wait to hear
from God. In the past I so often was busy being busy and forgot to tend to my
inner self, bouncing off one duty and onto another, always wondering why I was
so irritable and miserable. But here’s the thing…unless we find our inner
strength, the center of our balance…unless we find God in the midst of it all,
we will not be able to keep our hoops going. We make excuses about not having
time to spend with God, but the truth is the more hoops we have to handle, the
more we need God to help us keep our center. And when He does and we find that
much needed balance, all we need to do is keep our bodies still and let the
hoops just circle around in a beautiful rhythm of synchronized chaos. But quiet
times are crucial! Oh, how I loved those quiet times on the mountain top, but
we can have them in the valley too. Little moments with little prayers…while
hanging the washing or fetching the kids…”Teach me, Lord. Show me the rhythm of
life and be my center today.”
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Image courtesy of Akarakingdoms / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Why
did I write this blog today? I wanted to remind you and myself, that every now
and then, we need to completely drop our hoops and spend a tiny mountain top
moment with God. I hope you have such a moment now!
