Blah Blah Blah

I had come to the conclusion that the gentleman sitting behind me in 6F was never going to stop talking.

It felt like his voice was sitting on the top of my head. No breaths, an intense tone, and a steady stream of words tapping my brain like a woodpecker. And we were only at the point in our flight where the flight attendant was reminding us that our seat cushions could be used as flotation devices. (We were flying from Kansas City to Dallas. Not sure which large body of water we’d be diving into.)

And then…yes. His coffee was delivered. A few moments of sweet respite.

His wordiness reminded me of how much of our day is spent taking in…stuff. Some of the stuff is good. Information. Healthy conversations. Reminders. Heart encouragements. Learnings.

And then there’s the other stuff. Irrelevant noise. Mindless TV. Phone conversations and emails and social media reads that we get lost in. Stuff that keeps us from what matters most.

While the flight attendant was picking up our empty pretzel packages and plastic cups filled with melted ice cubes, I read this:

“…every addition to our life requires a subtraction. If you’re trying to add something to your life without subtracting something else, there’s a good chance the stuff that’s already there will win…Sometimes we have very good things in our lives that have taken up an unhealthy amount of space. However you want to classify these things, we need to subtract the things that make it difficult to add prayer and writing to our lives.

The writer of these pearls of wisdom, Ed Cyzewski, nailed it for me with the prayer and writing. (From his book, Pray Write Grow: Cultivating Prayer and Writing Together.)

You may want to fill in your own blanks.
Adding more time for your spouse. Children. Painting. Trying a new recipe. Sleep. Fun!

During Lent, I asked God to show me what changes I could make in my life that would keep my soul more open to His words. Two of the results? No more buying the People magazine on Friday afternoons, and unsubscribing from a few blogging sites that focused on successful weight loss stories. {I needed to just start doing the work instead of reading about how others were doing it.}

These were really, really little things. But they have made a big difference. Not just the obedience part. But they were big steps towards being more mindful of what my mind consumes. Of what I create space for in my life.

Well, the guy in 6F continued his one-way conversation in the clouds for 90 minutes, I was able to tune it out, and we didn’t need to use our seat cushions for anything but providing comfort to our bottoms.

It was a soul moment.
The unrelenting words of 6F and the learning words on my Kindle.
Such a good reminder to intentionally fill my mind with life-producing stuff.
And fill my days with what matters most.

Would you like a little inspiration from me every day?

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