7 Sacred Pauses

It's rare that you find me sitting down to blog after only 2 complete days in a month-long challenge. I'm usually still figuring out what I think about it and don't like to write until I'm sure of the direction the post will take, but this one is different. Even though I do still have some settling in to do, wrinkles to iron out, and ways to improve throughout the month, I already know what I hope to gain from this month's challenge... the 7 Sacred Pauses.

We all have lives that are so, so incredibly busy! I really can not for the life of me think of one person who doesn't keep their schedule full who is physically capable of it. You should have seen our calendar for last month. It really was a thing to behold! All summer long we wanted to take a vacation (I call it 'running away') and couldn't find the time. Adding a coming baby into the mix has me wanting a time away alone with DH even more and we've finally carved out 3 days we can manage to escape for the remainder of this year. Now to find a nice, quiet, secluded place within a single day's drive to hunker down in and ignore real life for awhile...

These pauses are intended to but a halt to all the hustle and bustle, 7 times a day. 7 times a day when my alarm goes off it reminds to stop, take a deep breath, get away from whatever job I was engaged in, and get back in touch with God. 7 times a day they interrupt the rhythm I have going and give me a chance to get in rhythm with what God is wanting to do with me instead. Sometimes it works... when I enter the moment with the right attitude of humility. Sometimes I blow it and fill the square. That's where I hope to see improvement throughout the month.

With only two days of this under my belt I've been amazed by two things.

1) It's incredible how quickly I can lose my poise after a good worship and prayer journaling session... literally the work of a couple of hours.

2) It's disturbing to realize how little I truly 'thought' of God's presence before now... Knew He was there, subconsciously, yes. But stopped to acknowledge Him and put forth the effort to commune with Him? No.

So on with this month of pausing in the hectic days, walking out on meetings with people to meet with God, setting aside physical labor to take on the labor of prayer, and growing in my love for meeting with God on a personal and moment-by-moment basis! I have everything to gain by this exercise and nothing but stress, fatigue, and irritability to lose.