Rush slower

If there’s anything that modern moms do well, it’s rush.

We rush from one thing to the next: from school dropoff to work, then from work to school pickup, then to the grocery store, then to the soccer or baseball or swimming practice, with that obligatory stop at the gas station shoehorned somewhere into the middle of it all.

And — if you’re anything like me– all that rushing can really sap your energy.

I wish I were better about praying through the rush.  I’m not; usually I’m too focused on watching the clock, the gas gauge, the traffic patterns on the streets around me to take a deep breath and recognize the presence of God.

But today, as I left work and got into my car for the first leg of the afternoon rush, I noticed something growing in the dirt patch by the parking space.  There, poking through the carpet of old oak leaves, was a plant with purple flowers.

See that green thing?  Look closer …

I have no idea what kind of plant it is.  I don’t even know if it’s what we’d classify as a weed, not a flower.  But it didn’t matter.  It made me happy.

Forgetting the schedule for a moment, I pulled out my phone and snapped some pictures.  The flower swayed in  the breeze a bit, and I had to be patient and wait to snap it in closeup.  But I finally did, and I felt better for having stared into the face of this beautiful little bloom, growing so silently and quietly in the middle of a dirt area near a parking lot, this gorgeous little thing that pulled me out of the rush for a brief, blessed moment.

It’s tempting to rush faster, to try to get everything done quickly so I can finally relax once the to-do list is completed.  But maybe that’s not the best way to go about this modern mom-life of mine.

Maybe the answer is to rush a little slower, slow enough to notice the flowers along the path.   That’s a kind of prayer, after all, and it does a soul good.