ACCORDING TO THE RANDOM GENERATOR, THE WINNER OF THE YANCY NOT NANCY CD/DVD/T-SHIRT SET IS COMMENT NUMBER 5 – COLLETTE!  YAY!  CONGRATS, GIRL!

I’m serving up the devo at Internet Cafe Devotions today but it’s also my Meemo’s 85th birthday – would you join me by leaving a birthday greeting for her in the comment section?  Let me tell you a tiny bit about her if you missed my “Meemo” post last year…

Fiercely loyal. Honest but with love – not afraid to hold up her hand and say “Boundaries!” if you have crossed a line.  Hilariously funny. Wise. Overflowing with the love she has to give.  Adored by her great-grandchildren. Adored by her grandchildren.  Adored by her children. Crazy-loved by a man waiting for her in heaven.  Wise. Remembers what it was like to raise four young children spaced too close together like it was yesterday. Adventurous. “Anything goes at Meemo’s house!” Wise. Sick days spent with the butterfly blanket and hot soup on a tray.  Matriarch. Nicknamed “Charger” because she’s a “take charge kinda gal”.  Wise.

Abundantly, truly, loved.

Happy Birthday, Meemo. We all love you and treasure you far more than you can fathom.

Now on to “Teach Us To Number Our Days” at Internet Cafe Devotions…Whew.  Busy place today.

Three children in the car,  a husband at the wheel, coats piled high, and a trail of mittens and hats gather as dear friends on a wintery day.  Mommy is still in the house.

I stop for a moment because our home is just so…quiet.

I know they are waiting but I realize the importance, that I must savor the gift of solitude so rare in this house of preschoolers that I selfishly tell myself they will wait.

I see her as I’m reaching for my scarf and I stop.  Seated in a thicket of snow against the backdrop of a dead, spindly bush is a stone fairy my mother had given me for my birthday.  A garden fairy, one we usually associate with warmer temperatures and budding spring flowers, she found herself in an environment she wasn’t meant to inhabit.

She was stunningly beautiful.  And I almost missed her entirely because I was in a hurry to get my coat and scarf on so we could get to the next event.

Lately, God has been telling me to slow down, to stop hurrying, to clear my schedule a bit.  I’m finally listening.

While reading Anne Voskamp’s poetic book  One Thousand Gifts, I found myself deeply convicted by the chapter entitled “A Sanctuary of Time.”  Anne quotes a pastor who was asked his most profound regret in life. He answers,

“Being in a hurry.  Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing…Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.” (p.65)

I have been throwing more time away than I will ever care to admit.  It seems that I’m in a constant state of hurry – to get to Kindergarten drop-off, preschool pick-up, church, appointments, meetings with friends.  We are almost always in a rush.  And to think of all that wasted time…

And a quiet day spent at home?  Rushing from laundry, to dishes, to cleaning up breakfast, to teaching small children how to write and identify their numbers – we are always trying to beat the clock and be “on schedule,” but whose schedule is it really?

Click here to finish at Internet Cafe Devotions!