I describe my granddaughter as “nine going on forty-five”. She’s one of those wise old souls who still possesses the spunk of a young girl.
I learn a lot from her.
She came over for a sleepover the other day and when she arrived she had so much to tell me and was talking so fast that I could hardly keep up. And, then right in the middle of a sentence, she’d have a new thought, stop moving, put her hand up and say, “wait, PAUSE!” Then, she’d take a moment to collect herself before saying whatever had entered her brain.
I watched her use this technique multiple times over the weekend. Sometimes she’d be watching a show and she could literally push a pause button before she shared a new thought or idea. But, mostly she’d stop and use her invisible “pause” button no matter what she was doing.
We’ve all had those times in life when we just want the world to stop for a minute so we could: rest, heal, mourn or catch-up a bit. And, it’s so frustrating that we can’t make the world stop spinning or make life slow its frenetic pace. We become so hardened by life that we feel like circumstances keep us running like hamsters on a wheel, and if we ever stop moving something terrible will happen.
We forget that in the midst of chaos, we still have ways to give ourselves little moments of peace, perhaps through a quick time of prayer, laying down on our bed for a minute, or (like my granddaughter) just give ourselves a frozen second in time.
My granddaughter reminded me that sometimes all it takes is to push “Pause” for a second to reset ourselves. I plan to use her pause button a lot in the future, to rest, re-focus and remember how good even a small moment of peace feels.
Read more of Ann’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
