A Slower Way
Over the holidays, life came to a screeching halt—and I wasn’t mad about it. One child who will remain nameless went five days wearing the exact same clothes. I’m not proud of this fact, but it happened.
We spent our days in pajamas and sweatpants; the boys played with new LEGO sets while Ben and I just sat. We sipped coffee that turned into tea in the afternoons, consuming both books and copious episodes of New Girl in the evenings. The nothingness was everything. I didn’t realize how tired my body had become until I gave it permission to stop.
But as the calendar flipped to 2021 and our normal routine came a calling, momentum was hard to find. The boys went back to school, and yet, I wasn’t in a hurry to change pace.
Ben and I were both reluctant to re-enter the frenzy, so we began to ask, “Do we have to?”
Thus began some bigger conversations.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about what it might look like to embrace a slower way of living. The values we hold for our family—the culture we want to craft both for our boys and for those who spend any time in our home—all seem to settle beneath the umbrella of connection. But presence with God and with each other requires a measure of stillness. We cannot foster connection by frantically bouncing from one things to the next, our minds always on what’s ahead rather than on what’s now.
In our current age of “more is not enough,” a slower way requires intentionality, shared values, and clear boundaries around our time, energy, and commitments. That we know. But how does that play out in our day-to-day life with four boys? With jobs and friends, families and commitments? What does that mean for our finances, our schedules, and our screen time?
Well, we are still in the process of figuring that out.
But here’s where we are starting: We want a slower way that invites connection. We want our boys and the people who visit our home to feel safe, seen, respected, and enjoyed. We want to know and be known by God in deeper ways.
And if pace is getting in the way of accessing this life of presence, then it is time for a change.
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In my next post, I’ll share a few small ways our family is slowing things down.