The Lesson of the Train

I am so honored to have my friend Jamie on the blog today. She is someone I have so much admiration and respect for.

Jamie created www.writinginthestillness.com as a place of peace, comfort, and rest from the cares of our busy world. In this space she writes about peace, following your dreams, faith, and creating family memories among other things. She believes that in this world of evil and uncertainty, there is also so much of good and beauty—if we know how to look. Her small and simple hope is that when others read her words, they will be lifted to new heights and feel closer to their Heavenly Father. Jamie is also a contributor on www.multiplygoodness.com -- a community of like-minded believers seeking to spread goodness to the world.

Jamie has lived in several states throughout her life and Portugal for two years, where she served a mission with her family. She has her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, but is currently living her dream as a homemaker. She lives with her husband Patrick and their three sweet children. She loves to beautify her home, create family traditions, record family memories, plan vacations, and curl up with a good book and a cozy blanket.

The Lesson of the Train

Lately, I have been writing on my blog all about following your dreams: the importance of having a dream, how to find the dream you are meant to live now, and the 7 step process of turning your dreams into reality.

But today I want to focus on how to get answers and guidance as you go about creating your dreams.

Even when we make the best of plans, there will be days when we find ourselves lost, scattered, and somewhat ungrounded. This was me yesterday. The weight of all my current dreams started feeling heavy and cumbersome. Stretched in too many directions, time was slipping away all too fast. Does this ever happen to you? The words of my seven-year-old son at the dinner table made me smile: “Time is like the swoosh of a jet plane,” he commented. And he was right.

So many questions hounded me and yet I felt no spare seconds gracing my day in which to commune with my Father and wait for His answers.

So we hurried through dinner and I hurried off to a Young Women’s meeting and afterwards hurried into my car to hurry home. My fingers instinctively went to the music dial, but I paused, and decided that tonight I would just listen in the stillness of my car to the whisperings of the Spirit. I thought to myself how lucky I was to have a seven-minute drive home to ponder. But then I wondered if seven minutes would be enough to “solve my world problems.”

I rounded the corner and saw railroad lights flashing, brake lights of the cars in front of me, and the slow chug of a passing train. I slowed to a stop and put my car in park. I knew how long these trains could be and I offered an audible prayer thanking the Lord for this tender mercy.

Because in the quiet of my old car waiting for the train to pass in the twilight, Heavenly Father helped me solve my problems.  All He needed was my time, and in return, He gave me deep peace.

So on those days when questions flood, and commitments crowd, and time starts “swooshing like a jet plane,” remember the lesson of the train and choose to pause. Choose to go somewhere quiet—even if only for a few minutes, to commune and ponder. Pour out your heart to the heavens and listen.

Because He will meet you in the stillness…