Be Still & Know I Am God

"Be still, and know that I am God..." Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

I think about this scripture verse more than any other. As I get older, I recognize the importance of being still. Time spent in prayer, reading the Bible and thanking God for the many blessings in my life have become immensely important to me. Time spent just "talking" to God about my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams... I really do talk to God as I would to a best friend. This time for me is usually at night when my kids are sound asleep, and I am lost in thoughts about the day.

Anyone who knows me, however, will tell you I am anything BUT 'still'. If there is a show on TV that I want to watch, I hop on the treadmill or elliptical to watch it. If the kids are upstairs playing, I am downstairs sharking (steaming) my wood floors. If Robby is out of town, he comes home to a living room completely rearranged! I can't help myself. I feel like there is so much to do and so little time to do it! I could spend lots of time trying to analyze myself (I majored in Psychology at UT), but I have decided to just find the humor in my little quirks. This one in particular.

This summer is an interesting time for me. The kids are all out of school and out of camps--they are home with me 24/7. They are no longer at an age where they take naps--they are going full speed from the moment they wake up until the second they fall asleep. It's an exhausting and exciting time of year in the Shimanek house. But before school let out this year, I made the conscious decision to stop all of my busyness and be more present in the day-to-day of my family life. You see, this upcoming fall semester will be the first time in 7 years that all 4 of my children will be at the same school full time! "What?" "When did that happen?" Listen, when you hear other parents say, "Enjoy it, the time flies by" they aren't kidding. It feels like just yesterday I heard the words, "You're having triplets!" Now they are kindergartners! And my Jaxson, well, he will be in 2nd grade! Look, I know I've got many, many more years to go, but these fun and cute years have meant so much to me--and they seem to be slipping away faster than I'd like.

So now, I find myself swimming a little more. Playing more Marco-Polo than mopping floors. Jumping on the trampoline more than hopping on my treadmill. And watching more Shrek and Kung Fu Panda than catching up with friends on Facebook. And while this may mean that the laundry isn't put away every Friday morning and my house isn't Pottery Barn Magazine-ready at all times; I find that I am more at peace. I'm closer to my kids and more thankful than ever for my family. When I was 26 years old, I prayed every day that the Lord would bless Robby and me with kids. I shed MANY tears over countless negative pregnancy tests. I hid from girlfriends that were pregnant because it made my heart hurt that I wasn't pregnant, too. Now fast forward 8 years and I can see God's hand on my entire life. His endless mercies, His countless blessings, His Love and Favor. I think I forgot a little bit about the days of praying for this life I now live. So I recommend to everyone, be present in your life, and be still and know that He is God.

Posted on Fri, June 10, 2011 by Alex Shimanek

6 comments (Add your own)

1. Michelle Cuellar wrote:: I really enjoyed your blog. I am so proud of how much you have grown in your walk with the Lord, and it is awesome to see the doors that God is opening for you. May the Lord continue to richly bless you always.

As stay at home Mom's, we do have to make it a priority to put God in his right place in our lives...always FIRST place. From when we wake up in the morning, during our day (trips to HEB or target :) ), to night time. As we delight ourselves in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our hearts!!! We serve a faithful God!! Thanks for sharing!!!
Fri, June 10, 2011 @ 9:26 AM
2. Misty Joseph wrote:: I love your blog and it is what I needed to read and take in during this summer season with my kids. With Kayli going into High School this coming fall, Peytin in 5th grade, and Chase in PreK, I feel so spread out with my kids. It is so important, as you said to stop and be still, talk to God as if you were talking to your best friend, and thank him for his blessings. I am trying to instill "quite time" in my 2 daughters because they too need to stop, talk to God, thank him for his many blessings, and listen. Thank you Alex for your inspiration!
Mon, June 13, 2011 @ 10:32 AM
3. Venuka wrote:: I still can't carve out the kind of time I want to go forward with this conoersativn, but I did want to say that I think Adam is wrong a) to contrast Buddhist systems with Christian systems, because there are plethoras of both; b) to claim that language is the basic fabric and texture of lived human consciousness, something no Buddhist would agree with, I think, and which I believe there is no evidence to support in any case; and c) to portray Derrida's project as somehow Buddhist in character, when in fact it ultimately reinforces the fixations that Buddhist practice (as I understand it) seeks to free us from.I should add that David Loy, in his 1988 book Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy, compares Derrida's ideas with those of the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna. He notes that Derrida understands that all philosophy, including his, can only reinscribe,' but for him the sole solution is to disseminate wildly, in the hope of avoiding any fixzation into a system that will subvert his insight. [...] In contrast, we have the nondualist example of a Zen master [Nagarjuna], who plays with language—moving in and out of it freely—because he is not caught in it. His laconic expressions emerge from / are one with an unrepresentable ground of serenity, and although they cannot directly point to this ground, there are ways to suggest it for someone else. In comparison with this freedom, to rejoice in being caught in a language that has lost its ability to represent any truth brings to mind Bernard Shaw's comment on the pleasures of an endless holiday: a good working definition of hell. From my point of view, many post-avant writers follow Derrida into this hell. I would rather not.All that said, I'd have to disagree with your arguments as well, and not only because I'm not a Christian. First, you've been misled by Adam (Fieled, I mean) into defending a system that is neither coherent nor much to the point. As I said, there are many Christian systems, and the one whose values you put forward is not one the Catholic Czeslaw Milosz, for example, would have subscribed to, nor would the Christian mystics Jacob Boehme or Emmanuel Swedenborg. My point is not to devalue your personal Christianity, but to suggest that it's not the real issue between you and Adam. The real issue, I think, is the Aristotelian idea of language as essentially representational (the view embraced early on by Aquinas and elaborated quite beautifully by the modern Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain) vs. Wittgenstein's (and Derrida's) idea of language as a self-reinforcing system of signs that represent other signs.One of the things I like about Owen Barfield is that he critiques both systems from a third point of view, one that is neither Aristotelian nor Wittgensteinian. While I don't subscribe to even a majority of Barfield's views on other subjects, as a poet I have to say that his views on the nature, development, and purpose of language ring true.Don't know if any of this makes sense, but there it is .
Thu, August 9, 2012 @ 11:34 PM
4. Maria wrote:: "you know mom, you can put them on a CD or, better yet, turn them into ptrins". It looks like you had a beautiful day. I am picking my oldest son up from college on Friday. I can't wait to have him home! Happy Mother's Day and here's wishing both of us a SLOW summer! xo, Kimberly
Thu, August 23, 2012 @ 5:35 AM
5. Pri wrote:: What a beautiful bonrig you had with your baby!! i hope it goes by slow for y'all as well! I always love seeing your pictures of our beloved area! It made me tear up. We are counting down the days till we head that way!:) Hopefully one day we will be blessed to have our piece of paradise to share with our family and friends.
Sun, September 23, 2012 @ 6:55 AM
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Tue, September 25, 2012 @ 2:41 AM

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