alone time

God can truly speak to us through any means necessary. However, the practice of silence and solitude is the most effective way to truly connect and hear from the Lord.

But the Lord is in his holy Temple. Let all the earth be silent before him.

Habakkuk 2:20, NLT

There’s been a running theme in our devotionals lately: breathe. Deep breath in, deep breath out. In fact, I can count 10 times this week alone that someone has said this to me. Granted, it was during x-rays, doctor visits, and other health scans. But, I also found myself just trying to calm my nerves with this technique.

I take a lot of deep breaths when I find myself in social situations. No matter how much I love those around me, my brain has a hard time with 3 different conversations, the kids playing, the TV going. Noise. There I go, retreating to the restroom for some silence.

It’s not to be taken personally by my friends or family. It’s just a quirk that will, most likely, never change. Even so, I often ask why I need to take so many deep breaths in a day. Why is this my reality?

Noises of Life

Que: knock, knock, knock. “Mommy are you in there? I’m hungry. I want a snack.”

I’m a wife, a mom, a homemaker, a partner in ministry. All of these labels take up most, if not all, of my daily time and energy. The sounds of the dishwasher running, phone conversations, children’s programs on the TV, instrumental music in my ear-buds all distract my mind and soul from complete silence.

My fellas don’t understand it now, but their noises of life wear me out. I live with a sweet four-year-old boy who makes around 5,987 different sounds in a day. Seriously, as I am trying to write this devotional, a Stormtrooper has been placed beside my keyboard. But, not before the soundtrack of live-action battle. I also have a six-year-old who requires a confidence boost in the morning and reading practice at night. I won’t mention how old my husband is, but he also requires conversation and a loud television (I’m not mad about it, really).

These are not “bad” reasons for the lack of solitude with God. They are my main missions in life and I am thankful every day for these beautiful responsibilities. However, being pulled in so many different directions causes my “deep breath” issue. I feel out of oneness with my Creator…

But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person.

1 Corinthians 6:17, TLB

Importance of Solitude

As I mentioned before, I’m a partner in ministry. Little did I realize, when starting to write for Oh Lord Help Us, keeping inspiration meant more quiet time with the Lord. And I don’t mean quiet time in reading or studying, I mean it in a way of doing nothing. A meditation of sorts.

It makes sense. Pastors often use solitude and silence to connect and hear from the Lord. It’s important for them. They are teachers of the word of God, thus they need to continually access that direct line to the Father.

It’s no different for Christian writers. We are, in a way, teachers too. We write about God’s truth and it reaches more than just a brick and mortar building of people. People all over the world continue to connect with us. So, when I say even us writers need solitude and silence to hear from the Lord, it’s absolutely true.

Silence Killers

It’s hard to find complete solitude when the world is throwing so much at us. Many distractions kill our silence: watch this, read this, listen to this song. It’s not comfortable to be bored, anymore. When is the last time you sat in a waiting room without looking at your phone? Or drove the car in complete silence? How about just sitting, without anything happening, noise or video?

I’m not saying God cannot speak to us through any means necessary. In fact, He has had to in my life, because finding me in a still, quiet state is rare. Think of this, when we are speaking with a friend or spouse about our hearts, we truly want their attention. If they were, say, watching TV or looking at their phone, we would know they are half in it.

The same is true in our relationship with God. He wants to interact with us unattached, disconnected and surrendered. To sit in complete freedom from the world: responsibilities and other devotions, interaction with other people, completely unplugged from technology. Completely.

God wants to interact with us unattached, disconnected and surrendered. To sit in complete freedom from the world. Click To Tweet

The Example of Jesus

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Luke 5:16, NIV

I often remind myself of Jesus’ example after feeding the 5000. He retreated to the mountain for solitude and prayer (Matthew 14:23). Now granted I’m only feeding 3 other mouths, but some days that’s a small miracle to me and I just want to retreat to the mountain of solitude with Jesus.

He had it right. He knew His work here on earth required a constant connection to the Father. So why would my Kingdom work require a different practice? If Jesus needed it, our humanity DEFINITELY needs a silent audience with God.

Let them sit alone in silence beneath the Lord’s demands.

Lamentations 3:28, NLT

Everyday Practice

Practice makes a habit. I have a feeling that practicing silence every day, will take care of my “deep breath” issue. Starting my day with solitude before the Lord will create effective, productive and calm Kingdom work. Deep breath in of the Spirit, heavy breath out of God’s truth.

One-hundred, and eighty days. Done. Our first year of homeschooling has come to a close. And we are still smiling. Of course, there were a few tears and aggravation sprinkled along the way, but we probably would have had that regardless. Bottom-line: He wants to continue, and so do I.

Here is:

What worked
What did not work
How I occupied the other kiddos
The Negatives
The Positives

What worked

Being relaxed: I’m what you would call a structured, driven, type-A kinda gal. But there is something about having a baby that throws plans out the window. And since that is what happened right as the school year started it helped me be more laid back about our school day. We were constantly changing our routine, because our routine was constantly changing. Also, we did pretty much the bare minimum of what was required, but we did it well. Our school day was at most 2 hours. This is partly because I didn’t want to spend any longer than that and partly because we were adjusting to a new rhythm of life for our family. And of course he was just in 2nd grade. I know that every year is going to get more challenging from here on.

Starting early in the year: We started in July, but it was only two days a week. We did this because I was due to have a baby in August and I wanted to give myself a maternity leave. But it was awesome! And I think we’ll do it again this year. It gave us a lot of flexibility to go and do things that we wanted to do. And living in South Carolina, the summer is so stinkin’ hot and humid, that I would rather have more days off in the spring and fall.

Having a set start time: It took a little while, but eventually he understood that 8:00 meant sitting down to start. There was no argument, it was just what happened.

Using timers when needed: Half of his subjects he did on his own in workbooks. Some days he was completely focused and knocked these out with no problem. Other times, I would have to urge him to stay focused. And then there were the times that I didn’t think he was ever going to finish and I was about to lose my mind (REALLY?? 30 minutes for 6 math problems?? Are you serious?!?!). And it was at these times I busted out the timer. I don’t know why it is, but if there is a timer, he is super motivated (and this goes for anything from cleaning his room to getting dressed). I don’t like to use timers all the time though, because it does tend to stress him.

Curriculum: I did not choose to use one specific curriculum. We used a hodgepodge. Half of it I loved, a quarter of it I scrapped, and a quarter we struggled through and will switch next year. But this is the beauty of homeschool, I can tailor it to fit his learning style (which is actually different than I originally thought).

What Did Not Work

Squeezing two days into one: We tried this several times. As life adjusted to the new baby, I wanted to get back to running, swimming, and taking my cycle class at the YMCA. The running I could do at home on the treadmill, the swimming I could do in the evening, but the cycle class just couldn’t budge. And I am seriously addicted to this class (not just the exercise, but the people are amazing). So we would “double up” on Mondays so that we didn’t have to do any school on Tuesdays. Sounds like a great idea, right? Wrong!! It usually ending with me feeling aggravated and him feeling frustrated.

Doing school in the afternoon: Since doubling school on Monday didn’t work, I thought we would try to fit it in during the afternoon. I know this works for lots of families, but not me. I am just mentally done with kids in the afternoon. That is the time of day I want for all of us to have down time, and then for them to go run around outside, or goof-off indoors if the weather is bad. My solution was to make Tuesday a “half day.” On these days he only had workbook learning to do, which he could do without me (and I would check and correct errors the next day).

Curriculum: As I mentioned earlier, there are several subjects we will be changing next year.

How I occupied the other kiddos

The 4 year old: At the start of the year, when he had just turned 4, this was difficult. I had some workbooks for him to do, but I was not always available to help him with them because of needing to work with my older son, or having to take care of the baby. Having him play with puzzles and blocks worked much better. As the year went on, and he wanted to do “big kid” stuff like his brother, he became more into coloring in coloring books. And then towards the end of the year, he began participating in the lessons. He still struggles with his letters, but he can tell you what a preposition and pronoun is!

The baby: At first, she just slept and that was glorious. By the middle of the year, she was entertained in the exersaucer. Toward the end of the year, she was crawling and getting into everything. I’m a big fan of having babies of this age play in the pack-n-play. She is in the living room, so she can still see us, but she is contained. This may only last for 30 minutes, but that is precious time!

The Negatives

I have had to sacrifice a lot of alone time. My mornings that I used to spend at the gym, are now spent with all 3 kiddos. My afternoons that I once spent resting, writing, reading, etc. while my children napped are now interrupted every 10 minutes because my older 2 kids don’t nap. And even though we all have designated spots for “down time” they find me. They always find me.

Another negative is that him and his brother are always around each other. And even though they love each other dearly, I feel that they get tired of each other. Because of this, I am strongly considering joining a co-op next year. Some time apart would be beneficial.

The Positives

Our lives have such a calm rhythm right now. We don’t have to rush out of the house to get to school. I don’t have to wake the baby in the afternoon to pick him up from school. If there is something we would rather do than school, we have the flexibility to do so (within reason). I’m able to challenge him in certain subjects and work with him where he is weak. Last year, he came home almost every afternoon feeling discouraged and saying that he had a bad day. He has had moments of feeling frustrated this past year, but they were few and far between.

The choice to homeschool was a scary one, but I do not have any regrets. One year, one semester, one month at a time. I have no idea what we will be doing years from now, but I do know that I already bought the curriculum for next year!

Silence: Practicing Solitude to Truly Connect with the Lord