A balancing act...

Hi Pearl friends!  First of all, thanks so much to Chrissy for letting me join you all today.  We're praying for a speedy recovery for her!  I'm Lindsy and I blog over at Space for Joy.  I'm a Mama of two sweet boys and writing keeps me sane.  My blogging is the late night coffee date chat that I don't have time for these days.

Picture this.

A world where there are no DVDs.  No CDs even.  No cell phones.  In fact, the phone is connected to the wall, so no walking and talking.  No iPads.  No laptops.  No computers!  No facebook.  No twitter.  No blogs.  No email.  No internet.  Books are made of paper and not read on e-readers.  If you want to talk to someone you just actually call and *gasp* talk to them.  And phone books were used for more than getting that cozy fire started.

I know you are all familiar with this foreign world.  This was the world I grew up in, when my own mother was a stay-at-home-mom.  I actually think about this often, as now my days are filled with socialization and friends, though it may be via the internet.  The world is a text away.  My sister across the country hardly feels much further than the next town over, many days.  Technology has blessed me in oh so many ways.  

I know that the days before mass technology still had their own distractions.  Yet, some days, I think about the days of my own mother staying home with me, and the lack of constant entertainment and connection sounds somewhat freeing.

Are you with me?

It's really okay if you're not and I'm the weird one.

I love being connected, but in some ways it drives me batty.  It is a blessing that can easily become too important.  A idol of sorts.  So, I must keep my heart in check.
  

Because I don't want my kids thinking that my emails are more important than their lego towers.

I don't want my kids to think that really talking with someone means you don't have to look in their eyes, because messaging their iPhone gets the point across.

I don't want them to think that I care more about taking their picture and instagramming it than being there.  Right in the moment.  Fully with them.  There is a difference.

And I don't know about you, but this world of technology can easily suck me in, switch around my priorities and breed discontentment and insecurity.  

I have to check myself.  Often.  

There must be a balance between our online and our real lives.  Our real-life connecting and living in this world of quick-fixes.  A balance between entertainment and then being still.  

The more we get used to being entertained, the harder it is to be still.  But we must.  God asks it of us, and for no small reason.  Be still and know that I am God.  God reveals himself to us in the stillness.  In the solitude.  In the un-plugged moments when we allow our minds and our spirits to dwell in him.  

That's not easy.  Especially as a Mama of a baby and a toddler.  And especially not in this fast-paced, vying for your attention, demanding world.  

So, I'm looking for advice.  How do you stop to soak in the slow, the still, in this fast-paced world? 

Do you put the computer away and leave the iPhone on the shelf?

Do you wake up before the sound of little squeals and little feet fill your walls?

Do you lock yourself in your closet?  

That's a goal of mine in this season.  Not only un-plugging, but being still.  Even an hour.  Ten minutes here or there of quiet.  Drawing near Him.  Listening.  Intentionally.  So I can be rooted in and filled with truth.  So that I might be able to overflow that to my family.  

How are you going to make room for stillness in this busy season?

I have a feeling this is going to be a lot harder than it sounds.

~Lindsay