This week, I visited Shipshewana, Indiana with my parents-in-law and sisters-in-law. We soaked up the countryside view and marveled at the Amish community. We stood in awe and respect of this people of simplicity. Their deliberately quiet life wooed us. We were strangely drawn to them, like a moth to candlelight. We observed, with reverence, a group who chose to shun the speed, the busyness, the chaos. They chose a gentler life, certainly not exempt of hard work, but gentler on their sanity. While we dragged around our purchases, filled our bellies with restaurant food, watched a little television, impatiently calling on our cell phones for a vehicle pick-up, they steadily, routinely, took their place in town to buy groceries and trotted home before dark. Not that I would trade my life but the contrast causes one to consider the loss. Have we lost ourselves in the busyness? In the fast lane? What would our world look like if we all slowed down and lived simply? What would our homes look like? Our hearts? Lord teach me to apply these things to the measure You require of me, in the life I have been blessed with. Thank You for Your abundance of blessings and help me to live simply and quietly so that I might hear Your voice a little more clearly.
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