Tag Archive | Life

Quiet Time Musings

This week has been a breakthrough week in my mind.

Making a quality decision  to not ignore quiet time, and to put that time to better use.

By putting it to better use in this instance means to to use that time to create my own thoughts, consider my own beliefs, understand what things I think and why.

I can always find time to read someone elses words. I’m not saying that that is wrong, certainly not, because it does help to create questions for further thinking in my mind. I’m only saying that I need to find out what I, myself think about things.

One of my favorite/best ways to get my thinking to get moving, is to read scripture. It creates many questions, and answers many as well.

The place I landed in my thinking was about space. Quiet space. Loud space. Crampy space. Spacious space.

I then looked up my favorite verses about space, and realized yet again, why I love living where I live.

I grew up in a larger city forty miles north of here. Houses. Streets. Voices. Traffic.

White houses out my window in rows. Utility poles breaking every small stretch of sky.

Someone elses noise always, always, always filling my head.

Some people, and their different personalities, thrive on just such environments. I however did not. I always wanted to be out. Some place green. Some place that I didn’t feel smothered.

My Grampas’ house was like that, but as a child, not very accessible.

Psalm 31:8b (ESV) You have set my feet in a broad place.

Then we moved here. My children called it Podunk. It isn’t really. Podunk, to me, would be much further than the few miles we travel from here to get to town.

Psalm 18:19 (ESV) He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued  me, because he delighted in me.

It is close enough to be close, and far enough to be far. Away from the hum of the city.

I knew I always wanted to be where I didn’t see only rows of white houses, and poles scratching at the sky. I just did not know how much. Nowadays, a trip to town quickly makes me want to return home.

It was very difficult to find quiet space back then, and it often involved a camping trip, or a car ride to a empty country road. Not impossible, but often difficult.

I am positive that living here, has saved my sanity. I have now spent almost exactly half of my life here; and I’m grateful. I am grateful for the overstuffed chair, that sits by the window, and looks out over a really broad space.

2 Corinthians 9:15 (ESV) Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

Maybe to you this does not sound like a gift; Your personality prefers the hum of activity.

Psalms 139:13 -14a For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

(He knows how He made you – He will show you another way)
Maybe you are here just wondering when your gift will arrive; You’ve been waiting and praying.

Matthew 6:8…. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

(Hang on!)

Questions to consider;

  • Does my quiet time require total silence, or maybe some music or other ambient noise?
  • Do I require quiet EVERY day? Every week? More than once a day?
  • Does my quiet time involve time together, alone, with someone else?
  • Does it contain devotions? Book reading? Bible reading? Audio reading? A quiet video? Or just staring out the window – at my street, or at my space?
  • Does my quiet time release me from the stress and pressure of the daily grind?

Please feel free to leave a response in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

 

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Enjoy some quiet. It’s Under the Hill.

29jan2017

 

 

 

 

 

Snippets; When Will You …

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It’s so much easier to read about, study, and talk about writing than it is to actually sit down to write.

Snippets; When Will You Ever … really write?

I know I’m supposed to write. And write. And write. I know it in my bones. And yet; I don’t write nearly as much as I should.

It’s so much easier arranging and rearranging my office, my stacks and my document files, to write, than actually to write the ding dang documents.

The thoughts, or at least the concepts, are flying through my head at great speed. I sit to type, or write it on the page, and just as quickly it flies away.

I take notes; Snippets on napkins, snippets on my phone, snippets on postie notes. Snippets in my pockets, and even snippets written sometimes on my palms.

To no avail. They are just snippets. Except like at this moment, telling myself, and you all the reasons why I can’t get it done.

Now as I’m typing this, I am wondering if my issue is because of the depth I would like to reach in my writings.

Living it was difficult, analyzing, and processing was almost more difficult.

Truthfully, I may not be really sure just how to get that deep again.

Is re-visiting the pain necessary? After all, it is gone.

Do I have to feel it all over again? Maybe trying to remember it again in so much detail is what is slowing me down.

What do I have to share that can best help you, the reader, in the way that you need helped?

Clarity is on the way. I know it. Perhaps you can help me by letting me know how I can share with you in a meaningful way.

Long, short, I believe I didn’t just walk through my life, and learn what I learned for my own benefit, but for yours as well.

And just so you know, in the mean time, I’m saving all of those snippets!

Quietude – Gray Days – Deja Vu

About a year ago, I posted this video.  The days were gray.

The days are gray now as well. This year the gray days are prolonged.

Just enough teasing sunshine in between to make the gray days even more miserable.

If you let them.

I’ve found though, that joy and peace can be found in those days, regardless.

It is by choice. Sometimes over and over.

So it is my hope that this little video will help you find some joy and even peace in your day.

Just remember, Spring IS on the way.

But wait! Before you go – What is it that makes your Gray Days bearable? A good book? A cup of  something warm? A snugly blanket? A gathering of friends? What?

Use the comment section to let us know.