Slowing Down

So I was driving to work the other day and I saw this license plate that said, "SLW DWN" and I had to chuckle. At that particular moment my mind was racing a mile a minute. Life had me exceeding the speed limit and so it was a subtle reminder that I needed to take a moment and "breathe," to ease up on the accelerator of my thoughts and simply go on "cruise control."

It lasted a brief moment!

Nick had the opportunity to attend "Houseboat Camp" this week with the youth group at church. And it took me a day for him to be gone to realize how much I miss him, what a HUGE part of my life he is, and how I would be lost without having him in my life.

I guess it's "different" to be away from someone you love so much, knowing they are with family than it is knowing he's away without any family. I don't know. He was gone for a week last year with his 5th grade class and I didn't worry too much about him. This week, I have been missing him like crazy and wishing that he was home...with me.

There was one day while he was gone that I had this overwhelming sense of paranoia. And for about a solid hour I was reeling with thoughts of something happening to him while he was gone. It was terrible. All I kept thinking about was what my life would be like without him in it. I sat at my desk at work and almost wept, as if something had already happened to him. The whole mental process was, well...almost twisted and so I focused on prayer, asking God to protect him while he was away, to calm any anxiety that he may be going through, and to remove this anxiety that I was going through. Finally it had passed and all I wanted was to hear Nick's voice and hug him. ...I still had three more days to go!

My mom had called me the last day of camp and assumed that I had been enjoying my time alone while Nick was gone because she hadn't heard from me. No...I really hadn't "enjoyed" the time, but I knew that I needed to go through this week in order to see a much bigger picture. I needed to sit back and take a long hard look at the meaning of "time."

In "Life's Questions with Answers From the Bible" it says this:

"Time is a lot like battery energy-we rarely know how much is left until it's gone. Unlike batteries, we cannot buy more or borrow more from someone else. That's why time is so valuable to us, and yet we often live as though it means so little. All of us would admit we waste far too much time in doing things that aren't important or significant. We know we should be more purposeful about how we spend our time, but we're often unsure just what that is."

I don't think I've ever been so anxious to see my little boy, to hug him, and to just hang out. And when he finally got home, we did just that! I looked at him...and it was as though he had matured five years. He walked different, he spoke differently, and he claims he even grew taller while he was away! :)

In just a few days of being back, he's already resumed his video game position...his "attitude" is slowly coming back, but that's ok...I will not be complaining for a while. For the moment I am perfectly content with simply knowing he's here. With me!