Alone TIme

Yesterday God gave me an unexpected opportunity for some ALONE TIME and I grabbed it and ran!

In a spontaneous moment on Tuesday night at 9:30pm I decided to go with my husband to Orlando on Wednesday, to lounge around the pool at the Marriot World Center while he attended a Chick-fil-A seminar. We had to drive up to Tallahassee on Wednesday night for Zac's orientation so Danny would have had to drive back to New Port Richey just to have to get back in the car and drive up to Tallahassee the same night. So I, self-sacrificing wife that I am, offered to go to Orlando with him so that we could leave from there for Tallahassee. The decision set in motion a flurry of arrangements that had to be made.

I had to figure out where my daughter would stay, who would walk the dog and water the plants. We have house-guests arriving on Friday about the same time we will be getting home so I needed to do a quick cleanup of the upstairs and the bathrooms, throw a load of towels in the wash and I still needed to pack. It seemed like an awful lot to do to get ready to go on such short notice but all the while in the back of my mind was the payoff...ALONE TIME.

The past month has been very busy. I have caught myself several times saying to either my husband or friends, "I feel like I'm so busy I don't have time to think". I have been on the go and was craving a little rest.

Rest and time to think. I sometimes feel guilty even saying that I need those things. They sounds like luxuries for most of us that run at a normal pace of 100 miles an hour but they are not luxuries. They are necessary.

After a particularly busy series of events Jesus himself instructed his disciples to rest. They had been running at a crazy pace. Mark 6:30-31 tells us they didn't even have time to eat. (I always manage to make time to eat!!) Here's what the passage says:

And the apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, "Come away, by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while." (For many people had been coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)

It is in that time alone that we have time to think. Ideas and dreams take shape when we take time to reflect. It is also in those "alone times" that God has the opportunity to speak to us. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of time either.

Maybe someone reading this is saying to themselves...I need some rest and some time to think. Sometimes we actually need to schedule that time in and sometimes we just need to grab it when we can.

Either way I pray that if you need that alone time that you will get it!

It did wonders for me yesterday :)