Too busy to think?

Do you ever lose things? I have spent the better part of this week trying to find my Mum's Christmas gift, which I'd carefully hidden somewhere in my house, then promptly forgotten about. Then today I realised I couldn't find Miss 6's skirt for the upcoming ballet concert. Also missing was a pair of pink pants, and a new pack of bobby pins. THEN I realised that her Annie shirt was also MIA.

At this point I started to panic, realising that one of two things had happened:
(1) I had imagined buying/making all the above things; or
(2) despite appearing relatively organised & my house fairly tidy it was underneath the facade a disaster

So I continued to turn my house upside down looking for the above items. I decided the only logical way to do this was to prioritise what I was looking for. Because the ballet concert is before Christmas, the costume stuff must be the first to be found, so I concentrated on my sewing table, the ever-growing ironing pile, the laundry, & several fabric/craft storage areas.

I am happy to report that while looking for the pink pants I found the bobby pins, then while looking for the skirt I found the pink pants. Starting to see a pattern appear I looked for the Annie shirt & sure enough, the skirt was revealed. So I decided to look for Mum's gift, sure that the Annie shirt would turn up. Would you believe it, after days of looking I found Mum's gift, almost in plain view.

At this point, late in the evening after several hours of tidying & sorting & hunting & looking my situation is as follows:
- I am still missing the Annie shirt
- my sewing table is a big disaster
- the floor of my rumpus is a bigger disaster
- I have a tupperware party tomorrow party in my house at 10am , ballet lessons in the afternoon & a bbq at my house in the evening. Even if I keep everyone out of these areas tomorrow I won't be able to deal with them until at least Thursday
- my sister & her husband are arriving from overseas on Saturday & need to sleep in that room
- I am still missing the Annie shirt [repeated because I'm stressed about this]
- I am relieved that I found most of the things I'd lost because it means point (1) above is untrue

It occurred to me that to be as forgetful as I am, and to lose things as often as I do [this is not an out-of-character experience for me] I must be too busy to lay down the memory trail of where I put things, ie too busy to think.

Somehow I don't think we're meant to go through life so busy that we don't think about what we're doing, or what's going on around us. I don't think we were created to miss out on living because we're too busy to lay down memory paths.

So this 'silly season' I'm going to try what I'm doing right now: sitting back & taking a breath. In the bible the Lord says "Be still & know that I am God". It's not an easy thing to do, to be still. More difficult is knowing who God is, unless you read the bible, where He reveals Himself to us.

I want to encourage you - don't miss out on any more of your life. Being too busy to recall what's happening around you & too busy to spend time with the God who created this life is no way to live. It also leads to a lot of things getting lost, in my experience.

I think I'll shut the door of the rumpus for tomorrow & enjoy my guests. The shirt will turn up [hopefully before the ballet concert].