Living An Unhurried 2020

“Real life is huge and unhurried. Hurry constricts my world, making it much narrower and smaller. And as hurry narrows my vision, I lose perspective on what matters most.” — Alan Fadling, An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest

As I enter a new year and a new decade, I feel my usual pace slow. I have long been working to be more productive: to be more efficient, a better manager of time and resources and to help things move along. However, my perspective is shifting a bit.

As I look back to ten years ago, I see a young mom not yet 30, struggling with the constant demands of a newborn, a toddler and homeschooling two young elementary students. If I look forward the same span of years, I see a mom nearing 50 whose children are all young adults, seeking a future apart from her direct intervention.

Ten years really isn’t that much time. It seems like yesterday, I brought home the youngest baby and wondered how I was going to manage such a “large” family of four children. It seems longer than two decades since I was carried over the threshold of our little home by my twenty-something new husband and wondered how on earth I was going to manage the daily rhythms of cooking, shopping, laundry and cleaning.

I know all too well that time keeps marching on, slowing down for no one or nothing. But maybe, just maybe, I can slow down for time? Hurry, as the quote above states, only obstructs my view of what truly matters.

This isn’t something new I’ve learned. After all, this is what I wrote 10 years ago as that mom of four littles:

“I made a list of all the things that contributed joy to my life–the things I consider necessary for a meaningful existence. There were several surprising things about this exercise:

• The list was shorter than I expected–meaning it really doesn’t take much to give me joy.
  
• The things that make me most joyful have to do with relationships rather than material things.
• The list didn’t resemble my to-do list very closely.

The first point is a good thing to keep in mind on the days when I’m not feeling very content with circumstances. The second point made me realize that my first priorities should be people rather than things. The third point caused me to stop and consider what my goals should be for the next year. If I spend my days doing meaningless things that bring me no joy, then I will get to the end of my life having lived a joyless existence. ”
— From Cherish the Call

So, I’m not making a lot of fancy goals this year. The thing I’m striving for most is not a change of place in my life but a change of pace. I want time to enjoy my God, my family, my friends, my home, our homeschool and my ministry. And if time marches on, no matter what, I want to meet it where it is, right in the quiet moments of a morning or the mayhem of a crazy afternoon. For this year of 2020 and perhaps for this decade of my life, my one goal is to live Unhurried.