The Solitude of Rustling Leaves

I watched part of an infomercial the other day for a yard tool. I'm kind of a tool nerd, so I enjoy hearing about and looking at new tools. This was a 3 in 1 yard blower, vacuum and mulcher. The cool thing about it is that you do not need any attachments. You simply flip a switch and it changes from one function to another. For 3 easy payments of $29.95 plus shipping, it could be all mine. "But wait..." If I called in the next 10 minutes they threw in all kinds of goodies. The main selling point was all the time I was going to save by blowing all the leaves and debris in my yard, all over my yard. With the voice-over trying to compete with the blower, it was a very noisy infomercial. After a few minutes I went back to the football game I was watching.

Today I mowed and raked my yard. I thought briefly about the vacuum/mulcher tool as I raked leaves by hand. Then I thought a little bit about the tool as I swept leaves and cuttings down my sidewalk. It would have saved me a lot of time. However, I enjoyed the quietness and solitude. Since this was the middle of the day on a week day, there was almost no sound in our neighborhood, just the sound of my straw broom on the cement. I needed that solitude today. Kathy and I are wrestling with a very difficult situation with our 16 year old. We are at the point of not knowing what to do. My prayers have been reduced to a simple "help us, O God". In the solitude of sweeping the sidewalk and street, and then looking back at my work and seeing a groomed yard, I felt good about my work, but a lot better in my spirit because I had taken some time to let God's presence touch my life as I worked. I took plenty of pauses as I prayed, thought, pondered and said "help us".

I don't think I'll be ordering the 3 in 1 yard tool. I need more of these moments of solitude. Moments when God knows everything I'm feeling when I can only manage a feeble "help us". Maybe you can breathe a "help them" for us, when you think about it.