Push to Reset.

You know, there's something refreshing about not being able to blow dry your hair for a week.  Or use a curling iron for that matter.  There's something to be said for living in your swimsuit, for taking baths in the lake, for drinking camp coffee in the evening because it's no big deal if you stay up late, and for capping the day off at the same pace that you started out - slooowly.

When days are slow and when life is simple, the regular household chores - like sweeping the floors and doing the dishes can be almost soothing.  When culture and chaos and computers and... LIFE's... madness get silenced for a few days, and when I totally and completely "unplug" and step away....it's so much easier to SEE. 

To be fully present.
To hear Jesus.
And to respond back.
Retreats from life are soothing for the soul.

Mist over the lake coming up with the sunrise

Sometimes, it's so hard to hear above the din of facebook, and t.v., and email, and the forever list of to do's that will never ever be finished.  I am addicted to speed, I know only one pace, - and I struggle to "live in the moment."

So, when I have a few days where that pace of life changes - and when I am completely plucked out of my world, and my life, and my people, and my "to do's"....

I am stopped.  And I am silenced.
And somehow, these blind eyes are once again made to see.
I am attentive, aware, and I am fully present.
And time is redeemed.

My spot.

Once again, I am made to remember...
"Life is not an emergency." ~ Ann Voskamp
Why do I have such a hard time remembering?

This was my prayer going into this week of vacation ~ that I would be fully here - wherever "here" happened to be at any given moment.  That I wouldn't waste that gift of a few days away.  That I would savor and see.  And that I would remember that hurry always empties the soul.

And maybe, just maybe... that my current life's verse of "We are merely moving shadows and all our busy rushing ends in nothing" could possibly change to a new one.  That maybe instead my life could look like "seek God and let your heart revive" (Psalm 69:32) or "teach me to number my days and satisfy me with you alone all the day long" (Psalm 90). 

Something just a bit more redemptive, perhaps.

When there is a "fast" from all of my time wasters and noise makers - those things that cloud my eyes and stop up my ears from hearing and that I allow to waste so much of my time.....those things that make me my own worst enemy...

It's like a reset button gets pushed.

And the course of my days and the thoughts in my head and my habits that I live by, get synchronized and aligned just a little bit better. 

Cascade Falls

And now that I'm home - back to this peopled life, and my days once again filled with work and responsibility, schedules, and necessary "to-do's"....otherwise known as "the real world" ......

I whisper with the blind beggar ~ "Lord, I want to see."  (Luke 18:14)
However necessary.
As You see fit.

Push to reset.