POV

So, okay, here's the scene.

It's a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon. And it's hot. After spending over four hours at the beach and swimming in Lake Michigan and nearby river, my son, his friend and my hubbie are inside our trailer, which I think is close to a sin on such a beautiful, breezy day as this.

Now, here's the thing. I like it quiet on Sunday afternoons esp if I have some time alone. Or should I say, I'd expect that in the park, it would be quiet on a Sunday afternoon. It's one thing when I'm enjoying the outdoors, say fishing, reading a book on my deck or even when sitting by a roaring campfire. I expect noise then, right? Of course. But today there is an unusually loud, annoying man-made noise in the park from one of the nearby campers. It's some sort of power generator, which I have come to find out is from someone power-spraying his/her trailer. Yeah so my soothing, relaxing time is not so soothing because of this over-bearing, constant noise.

I'm pretty darn good at drowning out noises (whether they are internal or external) in order to accomplish a quiet Sunday when necessary. But I confess having to work hard to tune out that generator. It's humming and buzzing and not stopping. It's been a few hours. Nope, still there.

Well it got me to thinking. Life is like this, isn't it? In order to accomplish any goal, hear God's voice, we must learn to quiet the other voices and noises around us. At times, peace doesn't come easily--we need to work hard to achieve it. Let the problems go, let the internal monologue go, and let God give you peace. And if you want peace on any noisy day, you might just need to block out the noise, even if only for an hour. Yes, even blocking machinery.

How to block these stubborn noises? Focus. It takes a great deal of focus/concentration to block out equipment, believe me--but I've been doing it as I concentrate on writing exercises and reading a book. I've trained myself to focus on the task while taking out the background. I still know the noise is there, no doubt about that. We can't just work away from life's problems or issues, but we can put them in the proper prospective so they don't run havoc to destroy our peace and joy.

It's about staying at the task at hand until something stops you that can't be stopped and yes, there are those things. I'm interrupted many times at work, but when focusing on the top priority task, I go back when I've taken care of the other issue. But when the focus is on the project rather than the noise, we're actually working harder and longer on our goal. Could you imagine if we stopped everything in our day when we hear an annoying noise or couldn't block our annoying self-talk? We wouldn't ever get anything accomplished.

So when the noises of life take over, just remember to stay on task until the job is complete--even if it takes many interruptions. Ahh, the post is written and the external noise has stopped. The generator humming has stopped. Now isn't that perfect timing? Ha! But isn't that the story of our lives?

Enjoy the Journey