"Busyness" vs "Solitude & Silence"

I'd like to say that I thrive on busyness (and it's a lie I've told myself over and over again), but in reality I know that it's not true.

As a stay-at-home mom, the word solitude is music to my soul. I love my husband and my children, but alone time for Mommy is not a concept they have mastered very well. I need my alone time to be able to regroup and focus, making me a better mom and wife.

Understanding my need for solitude within my normal function as a mom and wife, I am quick to understand my need for spiritual solitude within my function as a believer. Just as I need time away from my family to regroup and to rejuvenate, I need time away from "everything" to spend listening to God, rejuvenating spiritually.

However, understanding my need and addressing my need are not the same. Reading The Life You've Always Wanted (Ortberg), I found myself writing the word guilty in the margins as he described the characteristics of a hurried person.

• Switching lanes at stop lights (especially by my house, as there is a lot of semi traffic and a number of stop lights) and playing the grocery line "guessing game" are definitely two common activities in my daily life.
  
• Multi-tasking is an area where I've been proud of myself - bragging at times about how much I'm able to get done all at once. I've always assumed (thanks to culture) that this was something I should be good at - after all, I'm a better job candidate if I have multi-tasking listed as one of my skill on an application. I'd never stopped to consider that giving less than all my attention to a particular task/action actually takes more time than addressing each task/action with my full attention.
  
• Ortberg's statement, "love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don't have" (p.81), spoke truth to my heart. I struggle with having intimate relationships because I'm not willing to put the time into them that they require - I'm in too much of a hurry, and I'm not willing to "give up time" to spend on the relationships.

I need to work on cultivating patience - "deliberately choosing to place [myself] in positions where [I] simply have to wait" (Ortberg, p.83). I need to choose the longer line at the grocery store, stay behind the semi at the light, focus on one task at a time, ask a friend to coffee. I need to slow down and experience life instead of hurrying through it.

One of ways I try to practice the discipline of solitude is to "take advantage of the 'little solitudes' that fill [my] day" (Foster, p.105). I try (and have been fairly successful in the last couple of weeks, thanks to the work of the Spirit in my life) to get up and get dressed before my kids get up. This time of solitude in the mornings helps me to start the day un-frenzied and to have time to focus on what I want to get accomplished that day.

Just this morning, as I made out my "to-do list", I was prompted by the Spirit to turn it over to God to see if He would add/subtract anything to/from it. Starting my day with this moment of solitude and submission has been a blessing as I've worked through my day.

Whitney put it well when he said: "We all need times to unstring the bow of our routine stresses and enjoy the restoration that silence and solitude can provide for our body and soul" (p.190). Pulling away from everything and focusing my heart back on God is not only necessary but spiritual rejuvenating. And, as I turn my focus back on God, the things of this world lose their luster, leading me to live out a life of simplicity.