Slow

My life since moving back to the States has been characterized by one word. Slow. It's been slow going finding a full-time job. My days are slow. My schedule is slow. My part-time job as an elderly caregiver is a particularly slow and patience-cultivating endeavor.It's been a struggle to set a schedule, a pace, and to find meaning in the slow moments. To view the moments as SLOW and not (as my productivity-oriented mind is want to do) EMPTY or USELESS.I wake in the morning and my mind races to all of the things I know I SHOULD BE doing: working out, sending emails, scouring the 7 different job sites that have become my daily hang outs.But what happens when I don't jump to attention? Would the world end if I spent a lazy morning in bed?Here are some thoughts.Maybe it's ok to have a SLOW (not lazy) morning. To write while snuggled in fleece sheets. To not jump up and out of bed to pound the pavement.  To have no pressure to start the morning with military-like discipline and self-control lest the day "gets away from me."The pull to take advantage of every opportunity--my time, this city, every meal low in calories and bursting with nutrition.   Maybe it's enough to say, "I'm here now and I'm okay."I'm not avoiding, I'm savoring. I'm slowing. I'm listening. Not because I CAN'T be productive, but because I CAN be here in this moment. I don't have to be on the top of a mountain or on the edge of the ocean to experience God.                I don't have to         but be here.Because He is here.