15 Minutes Can….

Today seemed like just another ordinary day of mundane routine, feeling exhausted, drained, and not motivated to do anything, once again. It feels like it has been the highlight of my year but after allowing myself to sit still in silence and just listen to God’s voice, I realized that it doesn’t have to be.

My week took a toll when I over the weekend, foolishly slipped over a step and sprained my left ankle after having tons of fun with my family at our first football game together. I was being silly, laughing, and distracted in conversations with my boys that I missed that one step and it all took less than 15 minutes from the stadium to get to our car in the parking lot that I hurt my ankle. I share this because if we truly sit and allow ourselves to breathe and process our thoughts, a lot can happen whether good or bad in less than 15 minutes that changes the trajectory of our day to our week. In this case for me, the past 3 days!

We can all agree, that 15 minutes of our day is just not enough to do much at all in our day-to-night tasks but actually, a lot can happen in 15 minutes that we choose not to do in order to feel just a bit of peace, happiness, and accomplishment. Being that my ankle is still healing from the slip, I didn’t and haven’t done much walking or anything really to fill me up in the last few days of the week.

I’ve been mopey, grumpy, and not myself the last few days, so I did what I know helps, time in silence with God. I had my bible open, journal and pens out and a bible study that I have been trying to complete over the last couple of months called “Fight Back” by Pastor Vladmir. As much as I felt laziness within my mind, I took a deep breath and dived into my study. It didn’t take me too long to realize that within those 15 minutes of pushing through what I needed the whole week changed the way I was feeling, thinking, and processing. God spoke to me vividly as if he was sitting next to me as a reminder of knowing that I felt much guilt and shame that I was not accomplishing much of what I have been praying for. More time to study and more time to spend with him. He reminded me of Lamentations 3:22-24 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, HIS MERCY never come to an end, THEY ARE NEW EVERY MORNING; great is your Faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will HOPE in HIM.”.

What did that mean to me? Let go of what I didn’t do, and what I could have done, and move forward!

He truly gave me tons of opportunities over the last three days that I did not take advantage of. I am blessed to only work three days out of the week with a caseload of 20-25 clients that are in between weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly therapy sessions. This week was one of my lowest points of cancellations or clients chose to not show up to therapy. But with many of those gaps in between, I could have done a lot! But I chose not to!! I allowed my not-so-successful work day to define the rest of the week which includes and is not limited to, binging on Netflix, social media, sleeping, minimal engagement with my children and husband, my negative thoughts, emotions, feelings, and physical exhaustion that I allowed to outweigh me.

I have always known what gets my heart pumping and it is always time with God. This is a reminder of how we can gain much in 15 minutes. I ended up googling “What can you do in 15 minutes” a whole list dispersed on my feed. Here are a few examples: take a walk, read a chapter in a book, pray, meditate, nap, do a load of laundry, do your bed and tidy up your room, make breakfast, study for that test/presentation, journal, and the list can go on.

God again, prompted me and asked me to go take a walk, I did a bit more than 15 minutes but I allowed myself to change the start of what my day could have been if I didn’t allow that push.

Our thoughts get the best of us, it happens but we can simply remind ourselves what we enjoy doing in 15 minutes, maybe there are things you have done and just have pushed to the side on the unimportant to-do list. I encourage you to make a list of things that you enjoy and can do in 15 minutes as these opportunities will present themselves to take time for yourself.

Let’s get started by:

Make a List of things that bring you joy

Setting alarms to do those things

Organizing your calendar

Reminding yourself that there is always something you can do in 15 minutes that makes us feel good.

Prayer

Lord, thank you for giving us a new day to restart and recharge our minds, thoughts, and spirits. Help us to be reminded of the small tokens of goodness that we can do in a short amount of time that we don’t often appreciate. In Jesus’ Name, I pray. Amen-Amen.