Everything is done in a hurry. Even I shower in a hurry.
Perhaps that habit began because I didn’t want a sleeping baby—always one of them, for the past six years—to wake up and cry for too long while I was in the bathroom. That’s why I feel such relief now that I’ve consciously begun to slow my movements.
I started massaging shampoo into my scalp, paying attention to the pressure of my hands. I noticed the warm streams of foam running down my shoulders. Who would waste time on something like that?
And yet, the nervous system seems to love this kind of attention.
That’s when I began paying attention to myself.
Leaving the house as a family is a surprisingly complex decision-making process. First. Then packing everything we will definitely need—and everything we might need, though we usually don’t.
Meanwhile, the children should eat before we leave. And empty their bladders.
With Joseph, a reminder is enough.
With Francis, it takes about ten reminders, plus making sure he actually went and didn’t end up wetting himself… or the floor.
With David, it’s enough to change his diaper—but only as the very last thing before leaving, because he usually needs those ten minutes after eating in case he decides it’s time for something more.
Me. The house. Children and bags – into the car.
Maybe I should use the bathroom too? I pause and check my own bladder.
My glasses!
Does any of this sound familiar?
Everything in a rush.
And it still took almost an hour.
But why the rush?
I notice how tense my whole body is, as though it were reflecting the pace of my racing thoughts.
Cooking feels the same.
I usually have an hour—often less—to make lunch. David is asleep with his dad. The older boys are playing outside.
Everything in a rush.
Even our evenings.
Tidying the kitchen. Cleaning together. Baths. Reading bedtime stories. I could do it all more slowly… But then when would it ever end?
After all, I need to compress the day so that, between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m., I can finally feel like I exist.
Everything in a rush.
Sometimes even reading God’s Word and praying becomes the same. Because a mother’s loneliness is short. Without realizing it—until I do.
I think that’s why I rush.
Eventually, the body remembers. Every task becomes something to get through as quickly as possible.
One day my husband took our boys for a drive while I stayed home to write. When I finished, I made myself dessert and sat down on the couch. I had ten minutes. I had planned to do absolutely nothing. Then I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. And I felt disappointed. A deep kind of disappointment. That I was about to lose a few of my precious minutes to something as ordinary as a bodily need. That realization stopped me. What kind of place had I reached in life, if I regretted spending time going to the bathroom?
Everything in a rush.
Does it really have to be this way?
To let something go.
That’s the only answer that comes to mind.
I have a daily schedule I’d love to live by. Broken down into tiny habits. It starts at five in the morning and ends at eleven at night. An impossible plan. I’ve rewritten it several times. I can’t seem to let go of anything. And yet I already do. I don’t have the strength to wake up at five when I fall asleep around midnight and still wake during the night to feed the baby. But choosing to let go—consciously? Never. Because there are so many good things I want for myself and for our family.
And to live slowly.
But that is a choice.
To remind myself, in every task, that I can do it differently. To give myself fully to one thing. To stop rushing. To walk through ordinary days instead of racing through them. To build small rituals. Until life interrupts again without warning, and I forget that I once chose a slower one.
I long for a life lived at His pace.
The kind of life described in Hebrews 4.
A rest that is not about a Saturday, but about the posture of the heart.
A rest built on faith rather than free time.
A promised rest. Which means it is certain.
Be still now. Be still.
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