Frogs, Cars, and Quiet Times

Several posts back I told you that Molly and I are doing a special Sunday school class called Secret Keeper Girls. Well, for our "date" this week, she was supposed to get a fancy up-do. For many of us moms, these weekly dates have been difficult to squeeze into our already packed and hectic schedules. So this week, most of us met at the church and a couple of daring young ladies, armed with curling irons, crimping irons, rubber bands, and can upon can of hairspray attacked those wild tresses and brought about works of art! It was a small room, late in the afternoon, filled with bouncing and buzzing girls who had more than enough energy to light a small city. One of the hair magicians said something about needing some music, so I dug a David Crowder CD out of my car and added it to the din.

And there, among the noise, sitting in a smallish sized chair with my head bowed close to my book, I studied the 27th psalm.

"How like my life of late," I thought. This seemed the total antithesis of a "quiet time". But it was all I had. I had to laugh when I came to verses 4 & 5 which say..."I'll study at his feet. That's the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world. The perfect getaway far from the buzz of traffic."

You might think that with all that noise and "traffic" around me that I didn't get much out of my study, but I did. I began to wonder about why The Message translates this passage as the buzz of traffic while the NIV and KJV translate it as "the day of trouble". So I looked up the word translated "trouble" to see just exactly what kind of trouble we were talking about.

The word is "rah" in Hebrew and it means "bad, evil, disagreeable, malignant, giving unhappiness or pain, distress, adversity, calamity, injury, wrong, misery" and is also sometimes translated as "hurt".

It didn't seem a far stretch for me because I know that my life looks a lot like high speed traffic. And I know that that high speed traffic has caused me to experience every bit of the kind of trouble the word "Rah" represents. Sometimes I feel like the little green frog in the old arcade game Frogger. My goal is to get across that busy highway alive yet I move much slower than the unpredictable, speeding cars. Sometimes life just seems so much bigger and meaner and louder than me. And sometimes I feel totally hopeless that I'll be able to cross the street in one piece. So, yes, to that helpless little frog, all that traffic does equal a day of trouble. That's when I need to take my Bible and sit down to study at His feet, because God said,

"Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you.
I've called your name. You're mine.
When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you.
When you're in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you're between a rock and a hard place,
it won't be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That's how much you mean to me!
That's how much I love you!
I'd sell off the whole world to get you back,
trade the creation just for you.

-Isaiah 43:1-4, The Message

Seems to me that pretty much covers little frogs trying to cross the street!

Wisps of Fog

This is such a beautiful time of year- my very favorite. The world is so new and beautiful. How is it then that our society has made certain that we miss this time of year if at all possible? Any mom knows that April and May are the worst months of the year to try to plan anything. Ask to see any family calendar this time of year and the blocks all bleed together with writing creeping out of the squares and up the side of the margin. The kids all had dentist appointments last Thursday. I knew about them- they were even written on the calendar and I heard the message the receptionist left on my answering machine. But did we go? Of course not! There was so much crammed into the day that when something else came up at the last minute, I completely forgot about the dentist. (Note to self: NEVER schedule dentist appointments in the spring!)
Don't get me wrong! I'm not complaining! So much of the busyness is a celebration of family and individual talents and efforts. Orchestra concerts (three to be exact), band concerts (2), track meets (too many to count), rehearsals and lessons and practices for all of the above, ballet auditions and rehearsals, weddings, meetings, field trips, showers, going away parties, the list goes on and on.

My husband has taken a new approach to this chaos this year. He has deliberately slowed down. As I ran across the parking lot to rush home the other day, I had to wait while he took pictures of the moon through Spanish moss. And wait while he takes pictures of flowers. And wait while he takes pictures of children playing. And wait while he takes pictures of...

Maybe he's trying to hold on to all this that's slipping through our fingers like sand. Maybe he's trying to preserve it for me because he knows I'm missing it. I know I need to follow his lead. What does all this rushing around get me, anyway?

For I don't know the first thing about tomorrow. I'm nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. (James 4:13-15 The Message) If this is all I have, I want to make the best choice.