Distraction
a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.
Distracted
unable to concentrate because one’s mind is preoccupied.
Can you relate?
Distracted, distraction.
I feel like I’m distracted from my distraction sometimes.
My kids are always telling me, “Mom, listen to me.”
“Look at me.”
And most of the time I feel like I’m trying so hard to focus on any one thing.
I make lists, only to never complete them;
Or lose them.
Lists reminding me of how distracted I became.
Off task.
Unaccomplished.
Distracted
My home;
a hodge podge of unfinished tasks.
You can see them.
Laundry
Painting.
Book work.
Baking
Dishes
Often the vacuum is out with high hopes it will turn itself on.
Cleaning.
Yet, I’d throw away the lists and live with the distractions any day with what I do have.
I may not have finished the book work, but my farmhouse table was full.
My laundry may be scattered, but we needed two pots of coffee to warm the souls of all who entered.
And maybe sometimes it isn’t about the decor and the finished tasks, but the willingness to gather.
To meet together.
A lost Art.
Coffee around the Farmhouse table.
We’re so distracted by the doing that the holy act of gathering is lost.
This Pandemic has done much to scatter people from people.
Yet, we all need each other so desperately.
When we lean into God’s plan for the day we enter the holy.
We set aside our desires and lean into His.
The plans and the purposes become an Act of Worship.
We do the work that we were created to do.
Sometimes this requires distracted, distraction.
Time and time again I am reminded my day is not about tasks.
My day is about encounters with the Living and Holy God.
Would I like an organized home?
Yes.
Would I like walls painted and things not falling down around me?
Yes.
More importantly I want to sit at the feet of Jesus.
I want to hear his voice and live completing His list for my day.
So, while my laundry sits, and my book work piles up, I will embrace the distracted, distractions.
Always with a hot cup of steaming coffee.
How will you embrace your distractions today?
30 Days of Thankfulness
Autumn
I am thankful for:
Coffee around the farmhouse table
Distractions that teach me to lean in
Snow on the trees and landscape
heat in this drafty old farmhouse
A farmer who teaches me daily to trust
phone conversations with my cousin
Polo’s with college friends
Dinner by candlelight
quiet of the darkness in winter
my coffee buddy
my kids and their energy and giggles late in to the night
relationship shifts as my kids become Adults
the dairy farm and the lessons I have learned through the years
A Savior who loves me unconditionally
