PAUSE

I find it funny how adversity can be such a great teacher. Not funny as in haha/funny because often there isn't anything humorous in the lessons that adversity teaches...uh, no...no way!

For instance, I've often been guilty in my life of just rushing through it, not stopping to actually experience it's joys and blessings. But rather speed through each day, checking off the events of each hour as if they are on some cosmic "To Do:" list. What a waste...

Being ill has slowed me down...I know it's somewhat of a cliche but it does cause one to stop and smell the roses. It also allows me to listen...listen deep to the insight of God. I was missing it in the past, those learnings were always there...I wasn't. I had my mind on other things and who knows where my heart actually was?!

My wish today for my friends, for everyone really is that they PAUSE. Yes, pause, just linger in the moment of the day and liten to your heart. I know your thinking I've once again lost my marbles but I'm telling you that our hearts speak to us. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Take that moment to look around...when I do this I most often find that I have been totally missing something worthwhile. I remember once a long time ago, when I lived in Holland, MI. We had some work done to the house and a worker had left a ladder propped up on the front porch. It was right outside my bedroom window. I remember hearing this chirping..chirp, chirp, chirp. I walked by that ladder and never stopped to investigate.

One day the builders were cleaning up, getting ready to leave. They had been there for 3 weeks or so...the same amount of time that ladder had sat on the porch. I mentioned to a guy not to forget their ladder and he said something that really stunned me. He told me that they would come back after the baby birds who were living in it had grown and flown away. I could call them and they would come and get it.

For three weeks these construction guys had watched the laying of eggs on the ladder and the birth of these little birds. I think they were Robins if I'm not mistaken. I lived in that darn house, my bedroom window was 2 feet away and I hadn't even noticed other then the chirping. We lived in the woods so birds chirping was a rather common sound out there.

So for the rest of the time, I watched those birds grow and one day, fly away. This was a time where sure, I was busy at work but I was home every day. I often sat around by myself drinking on that very same porch but I wasn't paying attention to real life.

I was too consumed with my own thoughts, feelings and desires...a very common thing during my life before recovery. How many times I went to Europe or out west and spent all that time drinking instead of see all the fascinating things going on in this wide world around me...

PAUSE...I'm still learning how to do it....to just stop and look around me. Listen to the music in my heart. I bet you didn't know that heart...is the most beautiful musical instrument you've ever heard. But most of us never hear it, I certainly never did.

It is so easy in this day and age to be so stressed out, so busy that the schedule we keep forces us to just plow through our day, head down just checking one item after another off our daily "To Do:" lists. From Sun up to Sun Down and beyond...so sad.

I know changing that habit hasn't been easy. It hasn't been an easy change of perspective for me but now I wonder what I've missed throughout the years, staring at the floor or walking super fast through life. In too big of a hurry to notice the little things that make this existence...worthwhile.