“Just linger for a moment or two” I heard myself say. “Carole, you’ve gotta learn to linger.”
Five years ago, life was different.
Our oldest daughter was preparing to her first apartment, next daughter was living at home while studying at a local university and our youngest was still in high school, where I worked. We lived in a large home, on a sizeable property that demanded of us constantly. Hubby worked nowhere near just a forty hour work week as a pastor in a local church and his job trickled down into seen and unseen responsibilities for myself. It was our first year in a few with no International students as part of our home and family.
I was tired, perpetually tired.
It seemed that I was constantly in demand, in motion. I was either cooking, or driving, or working, or weeding …
and now …
life is different.
Our oldest two daughters are out on their own, our son still mostly living at home, sometimes working out of town, currently working locally. I still work the same hours, but it’s different. Hubby no longer working over full time as a pastor, now working a couple of part time positions. We sold our large property for a townhouse close to everything.
Life is … simpler, quieter, less demanding.
But, learning to linger … it does not come natural after years of living based on the urgent. The growing pains from a life of busy to less slow are very real.
In my adjustments to this new way of life and living, I am beginning to learn to linger … but it is a learning, a process of slowing oneself down.
It means pausing to smell the flowers, to listen, to ponder, to wonder.
It also means pausing in my day and lingering in the awareness of the presence of God. To put the book, the phone, the keys down … maybe even closing my eyes, and letting God know that I know he is right there, with me.
itsawonderfilledlife 