Keeping My Eyes Open

My life feels a little bit frantic right now. There are a lot of decisions to be made in the next 2 weeks, a lot of details to figure out, and a LOT of prayers to be prayed.

I need to remember to take time to slow down during this craziness. To keep my eyes open.

When I'm overcome by details like this, I have a tendency to put blinders on, and just dive into the 'to do' lists. But when I do this, I miss so much of what is going on around me.

For instance...I may have missed Allie getting into a sitting position on her own yesterday. In a way, I kind of did miss it. One minute, she was lying on her tummy on the floor, then she was on her hands and knees, rocking (getting ready to start crawling any day now). The next time I looked over at her, she was sitting on her blanket, just giggling to herself. So proud of her new achievement.

I was also frantically trying to clean my mom's kitchen yesterday. I couldn't find a dishtowel anywhere, and was asking Becca if she took it into another room. She said 'Becca get dish towel Mommy'. She ran out of the room, and came back into the kitchen proudly holding a dish towel. It was then that I remembered that I was doing laundry, and had taken away the towel myself. But I was a little bit surprised (and proud) that Becca knew where the towels were, and went and got one for me all by herself.

If I close my eyes to the life being lived around me, I might miss the sweet notes that my husband leaves for me occasionally. I went to pour my 2nd cup of coffee yesterday morning and noticed that he had left me such a note next to the coffee maker. Telling me what a great wife he thinks I am, and how much he appreciates everything I do for the kids. Sniff, sniff...

Lord, help me to continue living my life in the midst of this chaos. Help me to really be present in my world, and to not get carried away by details and 'To Do' lists. Help me to draw my strength from You, continually getting refreshed in your bottomless well of patience and wisdom.