Distracted

I had a dentist appointment this morning for a scheduled cleaning and a crown replacement. My appointment was at 9am and my cleaning began right on time and was over in about 45 minutes. They moved me to the procedure room where the dentist would "be with me shortly", they were "a little behind schedule". So patiently I sat and waited, my mind began to drift and I remembered our lesson at small group a few weeks back to take advantage of moments just like this. Just as I began to shift my focus an employee came in, apologized for the further delay and popped in a DVD to "help pass the time" and in a matter of minutes my attention was focused entirely on the movie (one I'd already seen at that). Little did I know I would be able to watch the entire movie while waiting on the dentist, but that's beside the point.

I began thinking about it later today and I realized how often I have good intentions but allow myself to get distracted. In this case I should have politely declined the DVD and had a worthwhile book there with me to read or just used the time as quiet time or what I prefer to refer to as "sustained attention" on God (I like that phrase better than meditation, which for some reason seems to weird people out). The point is I was stuck without many options and once I came up with a good one for me, I allowed myself to be quickly and easily distracted and I've realized I do this a lot. If Elyse is down for one of her longer naps I'll think to myself, "I should get out my bible" or "I should use this time to pray", but before I know it, more often than not, I've answered a phone call, decided to return a call, chose to check my email, started laundry or some other chore, or turned on the TV and the thought is long forgotten. I've also noticed being a stay at home mom at the phase we're currently in requires a lot of flexibility to my day and often leaves me house-bound by frequent naps and feedings. This sort of "loose schedule" adds to my ability to put just about anything off until later because "there's always tomorrow". Which reminds me of Thomas Jefferson's famous quote, "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today".

Part of me believes God tries to place me in situations where I don't have many other options. Like when I can't fall asleep or when I awake in the middle of the night or early in the morning, or when I'm stuck for 2 hours in a chair waiting.....just maybe those are nudges asking for my attention. The problem is there is always something willing to distract me (t.v., chores, radio, phones, computers, sleep) and usually the distraction wins. "I can do that later", I tell myself...."but this needs to be done now". Funny how often "later" never comes.

Maybe right now is later, I should probably stop distracting myself.