Peace and Quiet (Ann)

Silence is a rare occurrence in a house with a dog, an indoor cat, two outdoor cats, my husband, and our 6-month-old daughter. After a long day of teleworking and juggling the animals and our daughter, I am often exhausted and waiting for those few precious moments that I have to myself after our daughter is in bed and the animals have been cared for and are snoozing happily on the couch or outside.

Lately, those moments have been consumed by the myriad of things that need to be done before the next day that I don’t get a chance to do during the day (laundry, cleaning, eating dinner, making my husband’s lunch, paying bills, etc.) leaving me with only the few moments to myself before I fall asleep at night to try to center myself and pray. I have been accomplishing the “to-do” list lately by operating this way but it also has caused me to feel immense burn out.

Last night was one of those nights where I had managed to get our daughter to bed around 8 PM and was ready to start in on my “second shift.” Just as I was about to start cleaning the kitchen, the power went out. We don’t have power outages often (I can’t remember the last time that we had one), so to say that I was thrown off of my routine would be an understatement. I immediately went into “action” mode—what could I still get done while the power is out? Since we have a well, we didn’t have water so laundry and dishes were out. I couldn’t pay the bills online without the internet. I didn’t want to open the refrigerator too many times to make my husband’s lunch for the next day at the risk of our food spoiling if the outage lasted a long time. Instead, I found myself sitting in our recliner with absolutely nothing to be done in a dark and absolutely quiet house. I don’t think I had ever heard our house that quiet before. In that moment, I found such immense peace. I was able to pray and spend time with the Lord. I was able to take time for myself without the nagging “to-do” list in the back of my mind. I sat like that for an hour before the power came back on and I started in on my “second shift.” Those tasks felt much less daunting and tiring after that time of peace and quiet!

God knew what I needed before I could even ask. He provided me with that holy moment of peace and quiet to restore my soul when most I needed it. How beautiful it is to have a God that knows us so intimately that He can provide our soul’s deepest needs without us ever having to say a word!

Peace and Joy,

Ann