… a memory I am revisiting these days…
I think it was because my window was rolled down a few inches that he bothered to yell at me.
Otherwise, he may have just left it at that disgusted frown and shake of his head. But his driver’s window was cranked down too, us both looking for the relief of breezes from that late May sun blazing down.
So when he turned north off the 4th line, down at Knapp’s corner, and up line 171, our dusty van barely paused there at the intersection, he didn’t even have to lean over when he hollered it at me.
“There’s a stop sign there, you know!”
Color, shame, floods my cheeks. But before I can nod, mumble an apology, he and his diesel pick-up rumble off.
“That wasn’t very nice of him. You had stopped, Mom.” Joshua’s passenger seat defense tries to soothe.
“Why did that man yell that?” Hope’s turns back after the truck’s dust cloud, looking for answers.
Flustered, I carefully scan to the west, then east, then west again, before creeping forward through the intersection. And then manage a feeble explanation.
“He was concerned I wasn’t going to brake in time. That I hadn’t seen the stop sign. It scared him. And that’s fair.”
The wind blows through our open windows, our hair. In the rush of spring, I wonder if each of us replay his words again, the scene, reading his anger as fear. But maybe they don’t, their young faces silently watching the meadow slip close to the road with its petticoat of white trilliums. Maybe it’s just me thinking about stop signs nearly missed.
I’m like that. Always rushing, hardly braking in time, off again. In a hurry. So much to be done. Or so I think.
Have I been running life stop signs?
Do I have hard stops in my day, definite times that I come to a full and complete stop and have meaningful prayer?
Or do I barely make time at anytime in my day to commune in lingering, unhurried ways with God? How do I mindfully slow down and stop to intersect my time with God in prayer?
I don’t like thinking about all the days that are rolling stops.
The meadow retreats and waving fields of greening wheat lap up along the roadside.
The children, hands pointing and voices sure, debate whether that farmer is planting corn way off in a field on the horizon, or if he’s drilling in beans.
And it’s just me thinking about stop signs nearly missed and slowing to meet with God.
I’m listening to the prophet in a pick-up: There are stop signs here, you know. So I’ll stop. Really stop. And pray long.
There is no other way to avoid crashes.
Lord, if my life is crashing… have I been running stop signs?
Today, it’s all speeding by so fast, I simply have to stop and pray.
Update: What has been helping me come to complete stops throughout the day the last couple of months: The hourly alarm on my watch. When I wear my watch. And I have it on today. Now to stop. Entirely. Bow the head. And say yes to communion with Father…
A repost from the archives
Related:
Prayer: Why we struggle and how not to
Dare to be a Daniel: A Pilgrimage in Prayer
John Piper on Be Devoted in Prayer
Read an excerpt of Praying with the Church, Following Jesus, daily, hourly, today
Conversion Diary: Schedules and Hard Stops and Permanence
Praying the Hours
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