Going fast, going slow?

I am reading a book now that I will review here in a couple days called  Not so Fast  by  Ann Kroeker. I am really enjoying it! For one, it is giving me permission to not feel guilty about many things I do already, but also convicting about the hurry, hurry, life we often put on ourselves and our children. She talked about living in another country and how much more relaxed it was. She spoke of how people would wait in line all day for one signature, and how instead of fuming all day, they planned a picnic lunch and visited with the other people in line as they waited. I am sure there were the fumers as well there too, but anyhow, there were interesting points  and I am looking forward to reading it all.
Another thing it pointed out was the fact of making the things that make you busy involve people and things that matter. Sometimes we make ourselves busy  because it is time to go to church and we neglect taking the time to stop and listen to our 4 year old tell us a story. We turn down the invite to just sit and have tea at someone’s house because we have canning to do. <p> This brings me to the other book I read this morning about a widow, who lost her husband and has to move out of the parsonage into a small house in a subdivision in a city. She looks around her neighborhood and sees all the young families and children, and no churches and starts ministering to them in the best way she knows how, babysitting and helping them. There is a family with a mother who drinks, a father with a wandering eye, a cynical young family who wants nothing to do with God, but she can help them when their baby with croup. It made me think of how sometimes we are so selfish and don’t want to reach out to others because we are afraid of the cost to us. We are worried the children might be dirty, the family might not want us to get involved, we judge them on circumstances….yet this one women reaching out ended up with a entire church from the subdivision as they were willing to hear about God, after they saw her real life of a servant. This is not to say she said nothing about God, she said plenty…..but she also worked hard. <p> Anyhow, just some of my thoughts and reading this morning!