When slowing down is important…

Slow down. I heard those words at 5am recently. It was in that quiet, inside space where sometimes words drop like whispers of wisdom and pull you up short before you have time to edit them.

Some may say it was the voice of conscience, or self-talk; some may say it was the ‘still, small voice’ of God who speaks to us in the deepest places. Take your pick, but for me I’m going with the still small voice. 

Slow down. Funny thing to hear, seeing as I’d just woken up. I lay still, thinking over the last few days.

I’d taken time out, deliberately to regain lost resources of patience, good temper and kindness. My colleagues at work were very pleased I was doing this. Family too.

Slow down. I thought I was, gardening and occasionally thinking of the ‘bigger picture’ of where the business is going outside of the micro detail. But the Voice was softly persistent.

Slow down. I had enjoyed the end result of the work in the gardens, yet that sense of something missing still remained.

As I lay there quietly, another question arose out of my heart: ‘Did you enjoy the process?’ The answer – No. I hadn’t enjoyed that very much. I was looking forward to the end of hours of work when I could sit back, crack open a beer and relax in the results and say ‘Aaaaaahhh that’s better.’

Slow down. I was so fixed on the goal that I treated the process as just the way to get there as fast as I could. I had been blessed to take some precious time, time that can’t ever be recovered, and instead of enjoying that time I had ploughed through it unheeding.

I have no recollection of whether it was warm, sunny (it was) or even if the birds were singing.

So, I’m slowing down. I’ve noticed, as I slow down, that my responses to my children are different. Instead of barking with just enough edge to get their attention and get that job done, I’m a bit gentler. 

In that space, my youngest (seven going on 16) has started to make her own choices to help around the home and to simply do what she’s asked. 

Not always (oh Heaven!) but enough to make me realise that when I short-cut quickly to the barked command in order to get the job done, she hasn’t even time to grow in her own choices. Slow down, indeed.

Thinking back over the years bringing up her older brothers, I marched them through life from goal to goal; at times I treated relaxing as a task. 

So we all missed some simple pleasures. Always moving on to the next task, all of which were undoubtedly important, at least to me.

There are definitely times to run, times to focus and times to just dig in and get on with it. But not all the time. 

As someone who has struggled with mental health issues I know the results of that ‘always on’ mind-set pretty well. 

I’d prefer to slow down than crash, and I’m enjoying the thought of the people around me benefiting from that, too. 

Slow down. Last word goes to the Good Book, a promise that there’s a time for all of it and there’s Someone who can replace those lost resources: 

‘(God) gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.’

(Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31)