We’ve overbooked everyone. For the grownups: traveling for work, meetings for church, parent-teacher conferences, volunteer commitments, and the day-to-day of professional obligations. For our kids: two soccer teams, one cross-country, five dance classes, one riding lesson, one gymnastics class, plus sleepovers and birthday parties and a Homecoming dance and youth Sunday.
So I’ve been missing Sunday afternoons, with a nap and a good book and a slow walk in the woods and snuggling on the couch and making a simple dinner and just being together as a family.
This past Sunday, we didn’t get the whole afternoon. Marilee and Penny had dance team at church, and there was a Harvest Festival in town and we needed to pack for a trip.
But we did go to the woods. Just for an hour, all five of us. We listened to the river and walked underneath a canopy of changing color and clambered over rocks and held hands while talking about books and boyfriends and the highest peak in town.
Slowing Down in a Fast-Paced World
I do want to get back to a slower pace that allows for 24 hours of rest and celebration. I need that full day to have any chance of remembering that we are not the center sustaining the universe. I need that full day to realize that work is not my god.
But in the midst of a season of sprinting, I’m also grateful for smaller moments of grace and beauty and peace.
Learn more with Amy Julia About Slowing Down in a Fast-Paced World
- Fasting from Busyness (Waiting for God)
- S5 E3 | The Spaciousness of Limits with Ashley Hales
- “The Clock Is My Humility”
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