Be Still my Heart, or at least, Be Quiet, My Brain

Every year, we pick a spiritual theme and this year, it is "Be Still and Know that I am."  You would think this would lead to an obvious pilgrimage to visit the Blessed Sacrament. I won't deny I'd fully intended that this be a weekly regimen. 

Then life happened.  And we got to August and I'd not made it to adoration once.  "How can you know I am if you will never ever be still?"  I could hear God smiling, bemused at my frantic attempt to get through the laundry, the chores of the day, helping with math, solving fights, running errands.  Here I was flailing away and feeling like less and less was getting done, less and less was mattering, and much of what I did do, was without a sense of peace that I thought would come from the Rosary, from serving my family, from trying to do what I ought, rather than what I wanted.  I had to ask, did I really want it if I put it off so much? 

But the opportunity kept quietly insisting that I consider it, like a wound that needs tending.  It pulsed. 
I drove by where there was 24/7 adoration.   It kept reminding me.  Every time I went out. 

My writing started drying up.  Everything felt stale.  My prayer life felt rather like a diet that wasn't working. I was eating right, exercising, not losing weight.  What more do you want God? I asked. 
And I knew.  You can keep beating your head against a spiritual wall, or you can go. 

So today, after dropping off my oldest at his job, I told myself, give yourself 20 minutes.  Immediately, my brain came up with three different other tasks that needed to be done.  I shunted them aside. My brain suggested I go back home and help with the math, get the kids and take them berry picking, clear out the computer room, plan our anniversary...after all, didn't I say a daily rosary? Didn't I read the Magnificat?  Wasn't my prayer life already full?  How was it going to make any difference? 

I drove through the parking lot the wrong way (as if that isn't symbolic enough).  I parked. I called home to check on my two teens that were serving breakfast.  All was quiet.  I'd run out of excuses. 

I'd love to tell you I had this great spiritual awakening, but it was more like a, "What took you so long?" moment.  And I cried and prayed for all my family and wondered why it had taken so much, why it had been such a struggle, to simply come and sit?   There was a temptation to say the rosary, but I didn't want to be busy before God, so I refused my desire to get some of my to do list done. This was be still and know time, not rosary time.   Sitting before our Lord, I felt bothered that I'd been so bothered, troubled that I'd considered coming such trouble.  All I could mutter was a "I'm sorry, I've been away."  and over and over again, "Jesus, I love you." It was a warm calm place to be, the very opposite of much of my life with the twists and turns that ten different personalities can generate. 

When I left, I promised, it would be fewer than 8 months before the next time.  "Be still and know that I am."  can't happen if I don't visit.   Now God's working on the...couldn't you stay an hour?