A Quiet Life

-

...aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
~1 Thess. 4:11-12

 Quiet.  One of my favorite words. One of my favorite things.

...low tones of classical music wafting on the air as I'm curled up with a good book. 

...hushed jazzy voices crooning while I clean our home or prepare a meal.

...absolute stillness of a dark morning lit only by a small lamp and the Word of God.

...crickets chirping outside my window as I fall asleep.

I enjoy a good football game, laughter, and being with friends. Yet it is in the quiet moments of my life that I feel most alive.

My soul craves quiet.

Perhaps it's a reaction to years of going, doing, and spending. Maybe it's a result of endlessly trying to meet others' expectations. I believe it's wisdom gained.

 This blog will chronicle my efforts to attain a quiet, humble and simple life. A life filled with joy and love.  A life that's not about me but all about Him. A life well-lived.


Comments

Kim Shay said…
Beautiful, dear friend. I'll be reading, and working at being quiet myself!
April 29, 2013 at 7:21 AM
Aimee Byrd said…
Looking forward to more. Quiet is so hard to find in my house...!
April 29, 2013 at 11:47 AM
Becky said…
Beautiful, yes. And hard to do, too.

Love you.
May 2, 2013 at 7:46 AM
Unknown said…
I am craving the quiet after being in the world too much.
April 3, 2014 at 7:30 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Feeding the Frenzy

-
Increasingly, we are living our lives in the public forum. Hand-written letters to friends were exchanged for emails, which were exchanged for text messages, which have now been exchanged for tweets and notes on a Facebook wall for all the world to see. Secrets among friends, it seems, no longer exist. Meaningful friendships themselves may soon be a thing of the past. Social media has allowed us to collect "followers" and "friends" like trinkets on a charm bracelet.  We are compelled to share intimate details of our lives with complete strangers, yet we are ashamed to ask those closest to us to pray as we wrestle against sin. We foster, as Carl Trueman writes , an "intimacy of strangers which is such a part of celebrity culture - for example, the faux-chumminess of all those tweeted exchanges and retweets, lives lived as soap operas mediated by the internet..." We brand ourselves with carefully crafted personas, afraid the true person cowering behind t
Read more

Meditations on Mid-Life

-
Two women stand behind us in line. I judge they are perhaps 10 years my senior, but it's hard to tell. I inwardly cringe as one bursts into a litany of complaints and coarse language. The other can hardly stop talking about who she's tweeting and snap chatting while we wait. One as salty as a sailor, the other as giddy as a schoolgirl. I see myself in these women. A complainer who makes those around her miserable. A foolish woman too mesmerized by social media to be a friend to someone standing right beside her. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Lisa's friend passes away. A woman I've never met, but will one day. Her example to Lisa became an example to me. While she is just beginning to understand what it means to worship God fully, her family and friends mourn a life ended too soon. I consider the woman I long to be. A woman who, in Lisa's words , "...believes the good news of the gospel to be true; she believes it, she needs it, she banks her life on it."
Read more

What I Learned During My Social Media Vacation

-
With the Holy Spirit's prompting - and the grace of God abounding - I gave up Facebook and Twitter during December so that I could focus on the Incarnation and prepare my heart for Christmas. I didn't think I devoted an inordinate amount of time to social media; however, when I announced my intention to my girl and her response was something akin to "Good. You need to given them up.", I knew I needed the break more than I cared to admit. I had already stopped posting anything in this little spot for the final months of 2013. Limited blogging at Out of the Ordinary, permanently paring down my feed reader to precious few, and saying no to Facebook and Twitter has taught me some valuable lessons. ~ Absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. While there may have been a few who felt my absence, I imagine that I was, for the most part, forgotten. Not that I blame anyone; it's the nature of the social media beast. ~ Social media friends aren't alwa
Read more