Today I am thankful for speed bumps. Not so much the big concrete mountains whose orange stripes rise up out of nowhere at the last second and bottom out your car as you tear through the parking lot. I'm thinking more of the theoretical speed bumps of life - the big ethereal kind without stripes, that rise up out of nowhere and bottom out your plans for productivity as you tear through your daily to do list. I can't say that gratitude has always been an emotion I've associated with the gut-wrenching momentum shift that follows the big "BUMP", but allow me to share some recent enlightenment.
If life can be likened to a race (which is the first analogy I would pick), I could be likened to an Olympic hopeful in the 100m sprint and the marathon (because I would want to dominate in both speed and endurance, of course). I have spent most of my life, thus far, running the track of life as hard and fast as I could. Practice makes perfect, you know! In my quest for productivity and achievement, people have been my most common speed bumps. When my kids were small, they were quite literally my speed bumps, as I would regularly trip over their diminutive bodies while tearing through the house on some super important mission or other (gotta get that perfectly folded laundry put away before they knock the neatly stacked piles over!).
In all fairness to my mothering skills, over the years I have tried really hard to remember to look down. And thankfully my kids have all grown to a height that they are longer under my line of sight. Oh, if only the rest of life's speed bumps self-corrected over time...
But back to the gratitude part. What I am discovering is that the more relationships I engage in, the more speed bumps my life has. Every time I experience that unexpected, bone-jarring jolt, I am shocked into the present. All at once, I am required to slow down so that I can maneuver a densely populated stretch of life with a little more care and at a much safer speed.
During this slow down, I have come to recognize the beauty of the scenery around me, especially the faces of the people that God has blessed into my life. At this pace, I have the capacity to produce more graceful words, as my thoughts have more time to process. I also get a chance to catch a deep breath or two, a luxury I don't allow myself under normal speeds and circumstances.
I know myself well enough to acknowledge that this "speed bump" speed is not my most favorite, and it isn't one I will stick with once I hit the next open stretch of highway. After all, I've got places to go and things to accomplish! But I am so grateful for these regular interruptions in my life. In fact, they are not really interruptions at all. They are a much needed part of my life - especially as I learn to cultivate the richness of intimate relationships with God, myself and others.
I'm laughing as I try to finish writing this. I've had no less than ten interruptions by my kids (I counted for the sake of accuracy). I had to get up and serve another helping of potatoes - twice! I had to pause and listen to a detailed explanation of a drawing of every sea animal known to man (or at least this seven year old man!), and then provide a list of animals he had left out. I had to give a lesson in cursive to my nine year old and then admire the carefully practiced result. I had to catch up on the latest with my husband as he carefully averted his eyes from my partially-written blog (we have a strict, no over-the-shoulder peeking agreement while our writing is in process). Ahhh... I'm glad four of the kids aren't home yet!
And yet, I still got my thankfulness journal entry done, AND I got to place importance on some of the people that are teaching me the most about love and joy. And every time I paused, I came back with a better perspective, so in fact, this turned out better because of the speed bumps. Thank you, Lord, for every speed bump in my life! :)
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