Ben Wilson, LPC

Ann:

I've been reading Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts. Rich, very rich.

She speaks of how many of us live rushed, live without enough time. That is certainly the atmosphere of the holidays in our world. We hurry and scurry through the stores to buy the gifts and the snacks for the multitude of parties and commitments we have made to 'celebrate' the season. In the midst of all the rush, though, how many of us feel like this:

"Race for more and you'll snag on time and leak empty. The longer I keep running, the longer the gash, and I drain, bleed away.  Hurry always empties a soul."

An element of her antidote?      'Wherever you are, be all there'      So hard to do if we are in a mad dash for the door or the car or the next....  She says:

The clock ticks slow. I hear it for what it is: good and holy. Time, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3). Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time and presence hallowing it. True, this, full attention slows time and I live the full of the moment, right to the outer edges. But there's more. I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. In His embrace, time loses all sense of speed and stress and space and stands so still and...holy.

With one week to go until we celebrate holy birth, may you give life your full attention. May you feel His embrace. May you be all here...wherever you are. 

We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. Psalm 39:6 NLT