I am a doer, goer and to-do list extraordinaire. I buy post-it notes
in 12 packs. Freshman year of college was the first time I met anyone
who actually enjoyed sitting around doing nothing. Bursting into our
dorm room to change clothes for an intramural soccer game before my
study group and the floor party later that night, I was shocked to find
my roommate perched on her bed, staring at the wall.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” she answered.
“But what are you doing?” I asked, puzzled.
“Just sitting here,” she responded. I’m sure I gave her a quizzical
look before darting off to my game, inwardly judging her for wasting
time.
That was the beginning of nearly twenty years of living with
introverts (including my husband), a true gift of tough grace for an
extroverted over-achiever like me.
Through the years, God has used various people and circumstances to
wrestle me to the ground, sometimes finding it necessary to dislocate a
limb of pride, power or privilege along the way as He holds me to a
forced stop. But though sitting still can sometimes feel more like being
punished in time-out, I’ve grown to recognize that pausing, waiting and stillness is, in fact, a gift of lavish love from a patient father.
***
Now is one of those times—and I am fighting it. I am breastfeeding my
newborn several hours a day, leaving my other two children, age four
and two, wild and free to execute devious plots and create elaborate
messes. Though I thought pregnancy was the worst sort of slowness, I had forgotten the demands of having an infant.
I now spend hours on my couch, holding a tiny, dependent human, in
the midst of a house that looks like someone picked it up, shook it
snow-globe-style and then put it back down again...
...continue reading at SheLoves.
***
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