{"id":1502,"date":"2015-03-01T22:33:01","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T22:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:33:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-01T22:33:01","slug":"what-a-loud-change-quiet-has-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/?p=1502","title":{"rendered":"What a LOUD change QUIET has been!"},"content":{"rendered":"

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.<\/em><\/p>\n

~Psalm 62:5 (ESV)~<\/em><\/p>\n

Quiet\u00a0is now\u00a0found in my days.\u00a0 Silence, a much desired prize only so shortly ago when my crew of kids were younger, is something I have had to go through mixed feelings about once found.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thirteen years at home with between one and four kids always under foot made me a very very thankful lady when silence could be found.\u00a0 I remember just last year feeling like even when it supposedly appeared I couldn’t really believe it was silence while living in the city.\u00a0 Just\u00a0beyond my walls I could still feel the flood of moving people and vehicles, could still hear the roar of traffic and all the other sounds\u00a0everyone living in the city\u00a0usually becomes accustomed to as back ground noise.\u00a0 I was able to half heartedly blame my cycles of lack luster prayer life on my inability to find quiet, or more accurately my inability to\u00a0accept\u00a0the level of back ground noise\u00a0that was normal for a city neighborhood.\u00a0 Flash forward to today and the kids are all in school for the day, my small\u00a0town seems remarkable quiet and my only physical company is a rarely yappy dog, who is more like a cat in the winter…\u00a0 He naps in his bed all day, only moving to lay in the sun beams that move around the house while the day progresses or to nap on his favorite floor heater vent.<\/p>\n

For the first few months of this VOLUME\u00a0change I felt the healing in it and more then happily caught up on rest in body and mind.\u00a0 Then I slowly got a little lonely and a little distracted and a little unmotivated and a little uncomfortable with the break from noise that came each and every week day.\u00a0 The discomfort lead me to contemplating filling it and many of the options to do that made me feel insecure so I did nothing.\u00a0 Lack luster prayer life followed and this \u00a0generally reflected a type of subtle depression I usually don’t consciously recognise fast enough.\u00a0 \u00a0After all, how can I be down when I am so truly thankful for my break during the day, my calm little town, my big old house… all the changes the Lord has walked us through this past year\u00a0till dropping us off where we are presently?\u00a0 I enjoy so much in life so why was the quiet so unsettling?\u00a0 I told myself I am only uncomfortable because the daily change in sound level is so very drastic.<\/p>\n

THE DEPARTURE is a wall of noise leaving with my husband (out the door to work) immediately followed by my four kids and the two neighborhood kids that spend each school day morning with us, running off to morning classes.\u00a0 If Riddick, my dog, is awake we usually look at each other for a while before even moving away from the front door… the front door having been slammed repeatedly in such a short time then left\u00a0totally and completely stilled… Hours of quiet and relative stillness follow until the final school bell signals the return… … THE RETURN is just as dramatic, the kids burst in the door, yelling, fighting, throwing things every where, demanding food, avoiding home work, demanding help with homework, demanding tv and video games and friends over and more food.<\/p>\n

Even the very good changes have ripple affects that aren’t always so nice.\u00a0 I miss many people… there I said it… and the introverted me wasn’t putting effort into getting to know my new people…\u00a0 When it is quiet it means the kids and the husband don’t need me so I\u00a0miss them… and as I sit in quiet I miss my far off family members and\u00a0my dear friends I have so recently\u00a0moved away from…<\/p>\n

Instead of panicking and jumping into doing\u00a0just to\u00a0be DOING\u00a0I\u00a0think\u00a0BEING sounds better…maybe part of that will be\u00a0finding a little more time to be with people beyond my little family nest… and maybe I\u00a0can remember all the things I did before kids that I\u00a0found joy in\u00a0and try picking them up again or find the things I have desired to try and give them a go.<\/p>\n

BUT FIRST!!<\/p>\n

Be still, and know that I am God… <\/span>~<\/span>Psalm 46:10 (ASV)~<\/em><\/p>\n

I am going to wait on Jesus.\u00a0 Ultimately I have been growing in the practice of surrender… this is just another opportunity to practice by\u00a0not being a perfectionist about my time, seeking patience instead of productivity as a higher quality to be attained and to find contentment in surrendering each and every day to Christ’s schedule.\u00a0 This available quiet time is just another step in getting good at letting the Lord lead me.\"IMG_20150223_131830\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths. ~Proverbs 3:5-6 (ASV)~<\/em><\/p>\n

But godliness with contentment<\/b> is great gain: ~1 Timothy 6:6 (ASV)~<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. ~James 1:4 (ASV)~<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n

TTFN<\/p>\n

Lady Mac an Rothaich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. ~Psalm 62:5 (ESV)~ Quiet\u00a0is now\u00a0found in my days.\u00a0 Silence, a much desired prize only so shortly ago when my crew of kids were younger, is something I have had to go through mixed feelings about once found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,14,31,18,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ladymacblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}