There’s a lot going on these days.

There’s a lot of noise, a lot of things competing for my attention. There are a million apps on my phone, endless time sucking traps that I’m always tempted to tap on. There are a million emails rolling through my inboxes that need to be attended to – read or marked as spam or marked to come back to later, or just marked so that they don’t end up as 20,000 notifications to stress out my little Aspie brain. My kids are yelling, there are spelling words to write and letters to sound out. There’s an endless stream of flyers coming home from school, dress up days to plan and homework papers to look at. There’s baseball for everyone, including my husband, and a dog that’s getting older who needs more attention and vet trips than I ever thought possible.

But.

In the middle of it all, there’s a still, small whisper: “come away with Me”.

I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m trying to learn that when I hear that whisper, I need to drop everything for a few minutes.

I plug in the humidifier and the essential oils diffuser for the one with the stuffy nose, and sidestep the dog laying sprawled out in the middle of the hallway, and make my way outside. I saw myself later on the porch cameras, and it didn’t look glamorous. I didn’t have a steamy mug of coffee or a Pinterest worthy blanket. It was just me, with my messy bun falling apart, and my heavy sighs and a deck chair that’s not quite holding up its end of the bargain anymore.

But I’m learning that’s just the way He likes for me to show up.

He likes for me to show up exhausted, at the end of myself, dragging all of my guilt and my shame and my not good enough – because when I ease into the sagging deck chair and let out that sigh, I get to lay all of my stuff at His feet. Even if I am only out there four minutes – it’s four minutes of letting the Creator of the universe breathe life back into my dry and weary soul. It’s four minutes of choosing the King of kings over a show on Netflix, or one more load of dishes, or two more minutes of yoga.

He’s worth so much more than four minutes, but it’s a start.

It’s these tiny moments of obedience – of sacrifice – hundreds of times a week, that slowly change you from the person you are, to the person He wants you to become.