My children were huddled around the grocery cart as we waited our turn. I gently laid each item on the conveyer belt, all the while keeping a watchful eye. The brightly colored candy bar wrappers neatly lined the shelf. I guided their small fingers away from swiping some sweetness. We moved forward and I smiled a hello to the cashier.
“Wow, you are busy!”
“Yes, yes I am!”
Busy is a good word to describe life with four little ones under seven. Another word that comes to mind is LOUD. Growing up with three other siblings, the screaming, playing, and general noise doesn’t bother me. Its the noise of life that affects my heart and mind.
An overbooked schedule.
A to-do list I carry day after day…..never crossing anything off.
Too many people that need me.
Too many balls in the air.
Too many roles I play….
Wife. Mother. Teacher. Blogger. Writer…….
All of those voices demand my attention. They drown out the One Voice I need to hear the most. The decibel level in my home does not dictate the decibel level of my heart. A loud life is not a healthy life. Intentionally seeking out stillness is more than just having literal quiet. God calls us to find our peace IN HIM. We can find solace through the noisy seasons of life. Any season can be a season of rest and quiet.
Tweet ThisNap time is the quietest time of the day. Yet, it was not a restful time because I felt I needed to do so much. No matter what I did, something was left out and I felt tired and unrested. So I’ve changed my expectations. I only expect one thing at nap time: REST. One the best things I’ve done during nap time is put in my headphones. I turn on the music and get to work. Either reading. Writing. Cross stitching.
If you wait for literal quiet to spend it with God, you will never find it. You will lay your head on the pillow each night wishing you had more time. But the reality is, no matter how much time you really have, you will spend it doing what you have made a priority in your life. So make Him a priority.
Find your own way that works for you. No matter what you do, when you do it, or how you do it – when you do have that time to yourself, remember that it is all about a heart attitude, not the decibel level of your house.
God desires us to be still and rest in Him. He calls us to us in our noisy lives to come. Rest. Listen. Seek. Our quiet times will be best spent with Him. I’m not perfect, but this month as I focus all month of being still and resting planning is key.
Here are some practical steps to take…..
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Get some earphones.
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Invest in some soothing, encouraging Christian music.
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Decide which part of your day will be your quiet time.
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Do it. Don’t do something else….choose the quiet.
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Devote some of that time to spend in prayer and Bible reading.
Finding quiet time in your life begins with planning. It continues with intentional action. It changes our lives and hearts as we allow God to speak to us during those quiet times.
Your life doesn’t have to be quiet for your heart and mind to be at rest. Choose to rest. Choose to listen. Choose to seek. He is calling.
Jesus says to you, dear friend, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
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Love this! I totally can sympathize with a noisy home!(I have 5 kids;) I crave quiet but do t often get it, even when I get up early. But God is so gracious to give me what I need, when I need it as I hide myself in him. I recently wrote a similar post. Love your tips! Linking up with you at #wordswithwinter:)
I have had to learn the lesson to use nap time as my own quiet time. My husband works 13 hour work days 6 days a week so I have to use that time to have rest to fill up my soul. Glad I’m not alone! 🙂
Visiting tonight from the #RaRaLinkup. It is so true. If you are not intentional about making the time, it will never happen by accident. Glad we were neighbors today! Blessings!
Thanks for reading Joanne! I love your blog by the way! That color green is beautiful. I just read your post on Joy. Such a great reminder to me that sometimes Satan loves nothing more than to steal my joy! May I be ever watchful!
My children are older and take less of my hands on attention but I have to say I have to watch that loudness of the never ending “to-do” list. Thanks for the practical tips.
I absolutely love this post. Thanks for the quiet reminder.
I can’t tell you how much I love this! Thanks for sharing! I have 3 kids ages 4 and under, so the noise level in our house is big!
OH Kelly, you DO know the noise level is astounding sometimes! Thankful to God for earbuds (and nap time!) Thanks for reading!
Oh my goodness! I so identify with this! I have 4 kids, 4 dogs, homeschool and work from home so there is soooooo much activity in my household …. all the time. I have discovered that I have to get up early to get any kind of quiet and since I’ve doing that I can totally see the effect. While I do like sleeping in, I find that starting the day in the Word gives me more strength and energy than 30 mins of extra sleep ever does. Thanks for this encouragement!
I LOVE these insights! I never thought about it, but your right, our own hearts and minds create noise.
I appreciated when you said, “Your life doesn’t have to be quiet for your heart and mind to be at rest. Choose to rest. Choose to listen. Choose to seek. He is calling……”
Thanks so much for sharing!
It was a blessing to visit here today!
This is definitely something I am struggling with and working on right now. It’s a work in progress.
Life consists of seasons of noise, and quiet, and when we are in the former, it is, indeed, a challenge to find time alone and with thought. You get to where you can think, pray, meditate, and ponder while you are in the midst of doing other things: laundry, dishes, scrubbing the toilet, because generally, when you’re doing these things, not a lot of people are bothering you (or else they’ll have to help!)
This ability, cultivated through necessity, is remarkably helpful.
What a wonderful plan of action and I am glad you found your quiet and rest time yourself. I take a nap or blog when my kiddos nap and boy is it needed.
Thanks for linking up to “Bloggers Who Have Inspired Me”
Rachel xo
Bloggers Who Have Inspired me link up is now Live, hope you can join in
Garay Treasures
Thanks so much for sharing this. As a mom of 4 littles myself (raning from 6yrs to 4 months) –and an only child myself–I was somewhere losing my mind in all the responsibilities, much less noise level and actual and mental mess. One particular day when I was really down–because I was crazy about “my time with the Lord” and totally not able to find it as often as I desired it, I collapsed on the couch and did a “flip the bible open and see what you get.” I don’t normally do this, I normally dig in with a plan, but this time I did becuase I was so brain dead I had no plan of where to read. So instead God read to me: “Where can I go from Your Spirit….” from Psalm 139. He spoke softly to me and broke my heart. I didn’t need to get away to get to Him. He is with me everywhere, always, Emmanuel. He started to show me that when I was loving and caring for the kids, I was loving and caring for Him. When I was spending time with them or my husband, I was spending time with Him. It’s so easy to miss the implications of Mat 25:40…as much as you did for the least of these, you did it for Me.
May we all be encouraged that God is with us, no matter what’s going on. And may we truly experience His Rest…the kind of rest that kept Jesus sleeping through a storm.
Love to you from Holland,
Jasmine
I’m so glad you shared a little of your heart and story. Thanks for reading!