Good morning…
As many of you know, I am in the middle of a Spiritual Direction training program and the dense, intense reading is very hard for me. With my dyslexic, ADD brain, I read slowly and I struggle with comprehension. Unlike many of you avid readers, I cannot read for thirty minutes, do another task, then return to my book and start where I left off. I read thirty minutes, put the book down, then I have to re-read for another fifteen minutes to remember what I originally read. Slowly reading one step forward and a half step back is exhausting and time consuming, frustrating and debilitating. So, how do I cope?
I am not proud of my first response, but “exhausting and time consuming, frustrating and debilitating” smells like back burner material to me! Out of sight. Out of mind. I stir rapidly life’s front burner stuff, until the pressure builds as the deadline approaches and I sense the assignment boiling all over the back of my mind, making an anxious mess.
As I smelled this smoldering sense during my too busy week, God graciously moved my reading to His front burner. One God-with-skin-on friend offered me an opportunity to settle into her unrented lake home for a private, three day retreat. Silence and solitude are the best remedies for both my busyness and my reading disability. Undisturbed without distraction is a soothing salve for my Attention Deficit Disorder. Digesting nearly 600 pages of two books, how content did I feel when I read the last drop?
For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said this,
“In returning [to Me] and rest you shall be saved,
In quietness and confident trust is your strength.”
But you were not willing (Isaiah 30:15, AMP).
LORD, as I smelled the smoldering sense,
thank You for making me a willing way,
Sue
