Going Deeper

This morning....all at the same time...

The 4 month old had just been fed and was sleeping on my bed.

The 2 year old was playing with Little People and had them spread out from one end of the house to the other, but was super content with his VIVD imagination at work. I was laughing and listening to the adventures he was having.

I could hear Spanish pronunciations coming from the junior and the Rosetta Stone voice.

The 6th grader was at the kitchen table working on his math assignment of dividing improper fractions.

The 2nd grader was at my elbow reading his answers to me from his math (4 digit subtraction, borrowing across 3 numbers) and asking every irrelevant question that would pop into his mind. (I love that he is curious!).

I was having 3 different texting conversations going on while attempting to DEEP CLEAN mine and Kevin's bathroom.  (Multi tasker?)

It was in THAT moment....that I felt the nudge on my heart from the Holy Spirit. To stop.  Soak in a moment with Him.

When Kevin left for work this morning at 4AM he left a dry-erase note on our mirror (daily occurrence that I treasure) that reminded me to embrace Colossians 3:2.  "Set your minds on things above...." Yesterday, we had a difficult situation that came up that had left us both stressed and me discouraged.  He was reminding me to keep my eyes ahead to the big picture and to let Christ carry us through hard days. He was reminding me that together we would tackle the situation.  Together as a couple and together with Christ.

As I turned around in the middle of everything going on and looked at that message, my mind took a moment to focus in on what the Holy Spirit was working on in my heart. 

He was giving me a reminder.

Daily life can feel like a whirlwind.  There isn't much whitespace or downtime if I'm not purposeful to take it.  It's seldom really calm and quiet with 3 kids that are homeschooled and up to 5 "littles" ages 4 months to 2 years old. Things seldom go perfectly as planned and it's non-stop.  I treasure it.  I LOVE this life (though exhausted and overwhelming!).  It's a blessing beyond words.  But...

it.
is.
chaotic.

Stop. Refocus.  Keep eyes focused and heart connected to the LIFESOURCE.

I was deep cleaning.  Scrubbing grout, baseboards, little nooks and crannies.  Taking care of the "little" tasks that can get overlooked.  Despite a rough few weeks with back to back lupus flares, we'd managed to keep the house surface clean and picked up (thanks to LOTS of help from Kev!). However, I was "needing" to get in and scrub.  Tackle some of the things that I felt had been overlooked. 

The Holy Spirit reached my heart and reminded me that I needed that same deep cleaning.  On the surface, I'm doing ok.  I'm staying afloat so to speak.  My heart is hungry.  My soul is thirsty.  It needs more time with Him, in intense focused mode. With everything else shut off.  Away from the eyes of the world and the noise.

My soul needs it. 

A whole lot of getting beneath the surface.

No quick flipping through the "daily" reading.  No just shooting up "arrow" prayers (though they are important and throughout the busy day that might be all a busy mom can handle!).  No just sitting on the pew letting a teacher/pastor do all of the spiritual work for us.  No just letting facebook, social media, blogs, etc... provide my spiritual food of the day.

In other words, I need to get back to seeking Him deeper.  With everything in me.  For me.  Time to allow Him the full access to chisel and shape.

This time of the year so many people are making resolutions and changes based on health/weight/finances.  Those are excellent (and necessary!), but I wonder how many of us need to stop looking at the surface and go deeper?   Deeper committed to fueling our hearts with God's words, communicating with Him.  Letting Him get inside those deep hidden crevices. 

I know I do.