Giggles filtered their way through the glass window as I cleaned up after supper. Three little bare foot girls tossed the softball back and forth. The smallest one, with ringlets of golden brown hair down her back, swung the bat and made contact with the ball. A big smile made way across her face as she ran the bases on a miniature ball field.

A sweet, joy filled moment that this mama needed after a day full of worry.

2020 has been hard. Something we are all made more aware of as the media rages on about our world and everything wrong in it. I float somewhere between anxiousness and annoyance of it all. A longing for normalcy that sometimes seems will never take place again. I start feeling ok but then open my phone to grim statistics and outlooks, polar opposite opinions that create division and conflict, more issues arising, and I become fearful of the unknown and troubled by the noise.

Opening my bible more times than opening my social media apps is what I should be doing. The only true way to peace is through HIM. I know this and I’ve lived it. But before I know it, life overtakes me. Intention and discipline are gone and I find myself in a symphony of opinions, statistics, grim diagnoses, conflicts and judgements. Together they create a harrowing roar that makes my mind spin this way and that.

On a day full of worry and chaos, God showed me in a single moment, that I was focusing on all the wrong things.

As I watched her round the bases made from sand box toys I paused and a smile made its way across my face as well.

What we put our time and energy into will shape and mold our lives. I for one have been putting too much of my time into articles and news conferences and reading social media conversations. I find myself going down a rabbit hole and before I know it, I am astray and can’t find my way back out. Of course I want and need to be informed, but to what extent? To the extent of my peace? My joy? My mind?

Turn off the news. Lay down the phone. Unplug.

Do you hear the noise fade away? The squawking and shouting slowly diminishing into the atmosphere?

The orchestra of voices and opinions and diagnoses and statistics evaporate into the air.

I can breathe.

I can think.

I can hear.

And I hear beautiful, joy filled laughter as her bare feet make their way across the green grass and she crosses home plate.