NO MARGINS – 06/05/2020

NO MARGINS
June 5, 2020

PRAYER: Dear Lord, please lead us in planning our summer with quiet times to be with You.  Please refresh us and show us if we are crammed too full.  Thank You.  Amen.

Scripture: .even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.  Ex. 34:21b NIV

Gail was an incredibly intelligent teacher, one of those that could easily have earned a Ph.D. and taught graduate school, but I knew her as a middle school teaching colleague and a mentor for many years. Her unique handwritten communications earned her numerous negative comments, however. She wrote with the tiniest letters, and used every available space on the page—no matter if she was sending a professional memo or a personal postcard in the mail. This made her writing extremely difficult to read.

Dawn’s life, like Gail’s handwriting, had very few margins either. She scheduled herself full constantly, and often cut conversations and meetings short in order to be at her next appointment. After knowing her for many years, I decided her life, like Gail’s manuscript, was crammed too full.

God planned for us to rest, even at our busiest times. To truly communicate a life in the Spirit, we need to, above all, take time to rest in Him and in His word. We need to give ourselves room for margins, for those places to make notes, to separate words and thoughts. As you schedule your life as a busy teacher, make room for rest, for reflection, for prayer, even in the plowing and harvest seasons.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.*

*from the hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” by John G. Whittier

Copyright Shirley Wilson.  Email [email protected]