When a mom is encouraged to REST, it can almost seem like a cruel joke. But, it's the thing - the discipline that somehow a mom MUST prioritize into her life. Because it's so important to understand the kind of REST I'm talking about- go REST here and then continue here.
Today, I want to share a few more ways a mom can REST through more Beauty Pause ideas. On Friday, I posted the Take 10 and Get Out Doors Beauty Pause.
Take 10 - and Discover what Touches Your Soul
What is a Beauty Pause - the thing that touches my soul and brings a REST to me might not be that to you. It's up to each woman to discover and begin to practice her own Beauty Pauses.
When Michael and I lived in Portland, Oregon, one of my Beauty Pauses was to drive downtown to the Goodwill Store. Upstairs at the store were two of my favorite rooms. One was the antique room. Lining it’s shelves were wonderful selections of old tea cups, unmatched saucers, and an occasional lovely tea pot ~ all priced very cheaply. I love to look at and touch pretty things.
It was a Beauty Pause for me to linger, looking at the china and taking time to select my two-dollar purchase. Today, I have many beautiful tea cups and saucers, and even a numbered tea pot, from those delightful Beauty Pauses. Even looking at them and remembering is a moment to pause and remember that Beauty Pause.
The other room at the Goodwill store contained books. Looking at books is another Beauty Pause for me. I especially love the adventure of finding a very old book. I can still remember the day I found an ancient, leather-bound copy of Goethe (a German poet) written in English.
As I carefully opened the inside page, I discovered that this particular book was presented to Julies Rosenfield by Mrs. Annie Shapiro on January 1, 1908. I purchased it for one dollar!
That rare find is still a memory Beauty Pause for me today. More than a third of our library books were obtained from my Beauty Pauses at the Goodwill store ~ all one—and two dollar books!
My Beauty Pauses
I absolutely love personally pampering. It, too, comes under the category of Beauty Pauses. When I take care of myself, I say to God, “God, You did a good job and I’m going to take care of the good job You did!”
Bubble baths, with candles lit and classical music playing softly, are Beauty Pauses for me. A bubble bath has a way of calming me and causing every ounce of stress to swirl right down the drain.
Music is very much a Beauty Pause. It is said to calm the savage beast. Music is an instrument of Restoring Beauty. All of King David’s psalms were songs put to music.
A Beauty Pause to Restore Beauty can be as simple as sitting on your porch in the dark silence of night and simply listening. It will take a bit of time to quiet your racing thoughts, but you can do it. You can quiet those thoughts so that your soul can listen. To what? To the heart of your Father. To hear Him tell you how much He delights in you, how dearly He loves you, and how He has special plans for your life.
Taking Sanctuary
Is it time to take sanctuary away as part of your Restoring Beauty habit? I "took sanctuary" away here.
Is there a day’s drive you can take where the concrete around you can be transformed into the beauty of nature? Is there a cabin to which you can go? Nature often speaks more loudly to the spirit than do those four confining walls.
In Elsie Neufield’s book Dancing in the Dark, she writes that beauty was put there to make the pain endurable. She says that the two must be inseparable.
That is life: beauty, pain, love, and grace. It is enough . . . seeking beauty, looking for it, raising our heads and eyes to it, putting ourselves in places of beauty: this is a creative response to pain. This is healing itself.
About music, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”
Here are some Restoring Beauty thoughts for you to actually consider:
· What place does Restoring Beauty have in my life?
· What is my response to beauty?
· Where do I sense the need to begin to create Beauty Pauses so that Restoring Beauty to my soul can be realized?
· Where is that place that my spirit is refreshed?
· What keeps me from going to that place?
· Where is God in all this?
· What is God saying to me now?
· Do I have idols purchased with credit cards that need to be destroyed?
(If so, let your Creator God help you from this hindrance to Restoring Beauty.) More "beauty advice" is here.
2 comments:
Lylah,
I cannot tell you how much I needed to hear this post! I get so busy with doing other things, that I neglect to find or make time for beauty pauses in my own life. Thanks for the gentle nudge! :)
I look at beauty all around my home. I love going for my morning walk, puttering in my garden & rocking in my chair.
Just keeping it simple.
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