Small Success Thursday: Finding God's Voice in the Kids' Noise

Small Success Thursday

It's August 14, and I have ten days to enjoy summer. It's enough to make me go almost mad with panicking and packing. We still need to get school supplies, finish summer projects, get shoes, inventory clothing, and pack up. Add to that the paperwork for two colleges, a high school, a middle school and an elementary plus the ordinary stuff of every month and that emergency chocolate doesn't quite look sufficient. It's part of why I think I've been drawn to adoration lately, just sneaking in little visits when I'm nearby. I want the stillness.

Living with ten children, stillness comes at 2 in the morning, and sometimes not then, as I wake up and see there are lights on and someone programmed some alarm which is now blaring but only one person heard it, and that person is me.

This week, I've been trying to hold to my promise to my brother to walk. I'd hoped to make it my private prayer time, but I go outside and inevitably, one, two, sometimes three or four or five people come out to walk with me. I've tried to explain this is my quiet time, but that does not hold with these people. They offer to pray with me. They encourage me to run. I admit, I'm not always charmed by their enthusiasm for my company. But when the five-year-old comes out having put on two non-matching socks and his brother's shoes to just be out with me, I yield.

We walk. They notice slugs and bees, planes and rocks, and they'll ask me questions about what we will do, eat, and talk about after the run. For them, each day is endless with possibilities for new connections, new experiences. For me, I'm thinking, how many laps have I done? When do I get to stop? When do I get the quieter time? But eventually, and this is God's plan I'm sure, they snag me with their enthusiasm, challenge me to a race to the point I give in, or something, but somewhere in that walking I forget myself in their company and it is better for all.

I don't know how much I walked today but the kids have named this time "The Running Club," and are excited to see we will do this again tomorrow and the day after. One's gone so far as to create a list for the day and put walk with Mom on the list.

This past weekend, the readings talked about God being in the whisper, rather than the earthquake or the storm or the fire. I went outside to have quiet so I could talk with God, but God knew I'd listen better in the noise of my children enjoying the summer.

Have a great week of Small Successes. My biggest one was not refusing to be part of the running club.

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