Tag: quiet

Silence

It’s not that I’ve been avoiding this place. I haven’t been feeling well this last month and have only had one or two times when I had an idea for a post at all. This one came weeks ago but today I decided it was time to dive back in.

I had to make a doctor’s appointment and at the moment, they all start out with a phone appointment where they decide whether you need to come in or not. My house is full of noisy people (crazy, hey?) and so when I got my appointment time booked, I took my Bible and notebook out to my van and closed myself in. I could have gone into my room and locked the door but every time I do that, there is an inevitable fight that breaks out or a demand on me that I can’t ignore.

When I shut the door to the van and settled in to read my Bible while I waited for the phone call, I realized just how quiet it was. I hardly ever experience real quiet. I try to get up before the kids in the morning, and most days I succeed, but usually only by ten or twenty minutes. My daughter gets up before me anyway, so she is often around and wanting to talk. In our house, the little kids go to bed between eight and nine but the baby doesn’t go down until after ten and the oldest five kids go to bed when they want to – sometimes as late as midnight. They are supposed to stay quiet but we recently had to move the oldest boys out of their bedroom downstairs and into the family room there. So now they are directly below the living room and my bedroom, meaning late night quiet isn’t really a thing either.

I soaked up the quiet in the van for around fifteen minutes before the phone rang. I thought about how silence is a bit scary to me at times – I just want to fill it with music or speech or something to laugh at. But I know it’s needed, especially with a life like mine, full of people and sound.

It has been a trying six weeks. I developed gastritis from the stressful situation I was in at the beginning of August and haven’t fully shaken it yet. We had a bit of busyness that was unavoidable and I got wrapped up in things that only distracted me from opportunities for silence and reflection.

When I was a teenager, I went to twice yearly “silent retreats.” Now this didn’t mean that we were literally silent the entire time and didn’t fellowship with each other, only that we had hours at a time to go off by ourselves and be quiet before the Lord. Ideally, I would have time each day to read the Word and talk to God in the silence before my kids get up, but I have learned that some stages in life require creativity.

This is not profound or anything, just a reminder to get away in silence now and then. We live in a noisy world – kids or not – and a little bit of silence is a beautiful gift to ourselves.

Quiet

This afternoon I was blessed with a rare gift: three kids sleeping at once and five out with Dad sledding for the afternoon. A quiet house.

Rewind. I started a Bible study recently with a small group of moms and had the bright idea to save $5 by buying the Kindle version of the book. The only trouble is that there are a lot of blanks to fill in and questions to answer. A lot. Like, really a lot. So I cheerfully bought a cute journal to write all my answers in. And then waited until the night before our first official meeting to start writing them down and answering questions. I got about three quarters of the way through the first week’s study and quit. Better to have done some than none at all. After that hand cramping experience, I decided I would see if I could print the questions and glue them in the journal so at least I wouldn’t have to hand write everything.

Back to my quiet afternoon. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to deal with this plan and then start working on a bit of the study so as not to repeat last week’s mistake of waiting until the last minute. I made myself a cup of coffee, then sat down, typed up all the questions from week two and printed them out. After cutting two or three out and pasting them into the journal, I promptly went on Amazon and bought the paper copy of the study. Ain’t nobody got time for this.

In between the typing, cutting, gluing and ordering, Lucas decided he wasn’t going to stay asleep. I nursed him while I typed, then put him back in the swing. That lasted long enough to do a bit of the cut and paste before he let me know he wasn’t happy there. Picked him up, gave him a “top up” while ordering the book and put him back again.

Finally, quiet again. But the dog needs to be let out and I’m sure there are things from the freezer downstairs that need to be brought up for the week (yes, there are) and then let the dog back in and feed him and get back to work.

But maybe just having a rest, doing something restful, would be a better use of the quiet. I gave that thought some contemplation but it’s now after four. And Mike and the kids will come back hungry and cold and tired and need supper. I looked at the mess that WILL NOT LEAVE one area of my house and nearly cried. And instead of starting supper, sat down to write.

This is my life. Pretty much every day of my life when I try to do something for myself or something productive that cannot be done while also caring for a child. I can ignore it most of the time, and do, but some days it presents itself as a challenge and makes me question myself. I’d like to think that I could just keep my nose to the grindstone and get through this part of my life and THEN move onto the “important” things like ladies Bible studies and crafts and “quiet time.”

But we’ve all read it in every mom book and blog ever written: this day to day, changing diapers and making meals, is important stuff. I know it in my head but it’s hard to get it into my heart when I find myself essentially out of control again: the house will not stay clean and it’s not just my kids making the mess or I’ve started a project I can’t finish and perfectionism wants to rear its ugly head again and torment me for it.

Two of my kids have come home since I started writing. They went to the big fun sledding hill but weren’t interested in the hills at the elementary school down the road. They scurried off to have their one hour turns on tablets. I probably have half an hour or so until the rest come stomping back in and everyone now sleeping wakes up. I think I’ll lie down and hope to wake up with a little more hope than I have now.

Except before I hit “publish” I was distracted by something and decided to print the questions again with room to write the answers and just cut the paper into four pieces and paste the whole thing into the journal. And also eat something from the freezer because at this point, I’ve conceded that supper is probably a long way off. I guess the good news is that the house is quiet (again/still?).