How Interruptions Aren't Really Interruptions

Pile of blankets on the floor next to my son's bed.  Leftover evidence of the nights we've spent sleeping there (me one night, my hubby the next).  Or trying to sleep.  Feverish, croupy, coughing kiddo makes for a looonnnnng night.

Messy house.  Pillows strewn all around.  Toys that've migrated out of the playroom and been abandoned in various and sundry locations.  Blanket here.  Kleenex box there.  Empty apple sauce pouch that didn't make it to the trash.  Dish mountain in the sink, waiting to be tackled.  Extra hours of Curious George on the playroom TV. 

Such is life in the Butler household with a sick lil' guy.

We stayed home from church yesterday morning.  Dearly missed worshiping with our church family.  But honestly, something in me willingly settled down into just laying low with my family.  I enjoyed it.


If I'd Choose to Stop Feeling Interrupted
And then there was this quote that somehow ended up in my inbox yesterday morning (of all mornings), from this post over at The Better Mom.  The timing was hilariously perfect.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day.”
~C.S. Lewis

Hello?!  Did someone install spy-cams in my house to observe my life so they'd know EXACTLY what post to send me THIS morning?  I think I laughed out loud at how this post met me precisely in the midst of my exact circumstances.

When sickness invades our home and puts our "normal" lives on pause, it can feel like the greatest of interruptions.

Before that post hit my inbox, sometime in the middle of the night while I was rocking my sicky boy, my heart began to shift.  I went from hating the fact that I was awake and feeling sorry for myself because I'd only slept maybe a 10 minute stretch all night long, to thanking God.

Thanking Him for this opportunity to cuddle with my little guy.  Acknowledging that he won't be little much longer, that before I know it, he'll be too big to sit on my lap and let me rock him.

We hear these things often as moms of littles - from ladies in the grocery store, from our friends whose kids are older.  "Cherish every moment.  They grow up so fast."

Maybe we roll our eyes.  If not our physical eyes, then maybe we roll the eyes of our heart?  Is such a thing possible?

But it really is true.  They DO grow up quickly.  And God offers us grace to cherish these moments, the here and now, when we turn our hearts toward Him in the midst of them.  These "interruptions" of our "real" life that are REALLY our LIFE. 

And there's LIFE to be found in them.

There's LIFE in the extra cuddles and kisses that come with a sick little one.  There's LIFE in the laying down of my own life to serve my family.  There's LIFE in the sleepless nights when I turn my heart toward the Father, acknowledging that He sees my giving tylenol and stroking hair and propping up and adjusting covers for the 12th time, and all my rocking, rocking, rocking.

He sees all this laying down of my life, and receives it all as worship.  A pleasing fragrance to His heart.

There's LIFE to be found when I choose to stop feeling interrupted and wholeheartedly embrace this moment, the one I've been given.  

When I jump into RIGHT NOW with both feet, my heart anticipating divine encounter.

God's waiting in the right now, wanting to reveal Himself, to offer grace for the "interruptions" that make up our real life.  

Grace to stop feeling interrupted and be fully present - to God, and to our lives.

Jump in with me today?

~~~

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