Homestead Longings

Defragmenting

Thoughts tend to occur to me at what seems the oddest moments, and then off they go, on a rabbit trail that brings me to some understanding of life or God.

I was sitting in front of this very computer screen the other day watching my computer defragment itself. I was told years ago to do this frequently as part of general maintenance to keep my computer running smoothly. First run a disc cleanup to clean out all the garbage laying around, and then defragment the entire drive so that everything is compressed, in its place, and runs a lot more efficiently. This also forms nice clean areas that are primed and ready for new information. The thought occurred to me then. Is this a visual equivalent of what God does in our lives? If a computer could feel, would it feel during a "defrag" what I have felt like over these past few months?

I admit that I have struggled quite a bit from time to time. I have also experienced moments of renewal throughout this when I chose to seek the good and the blessings amongst it all. I have also felt a great pulling in the past few days to just stop and be still. To just listen and seek the movement and rythym of God in my life and lives of my family. During these times of quiet and rest, simplicity has been on my mind.

What is simplicity? I have never pondered it before. It is a brand of sewing patterns, hehe. No really. I looked up simple in a cheap desk top thesaurus that is sitting here on my desk. One of the synonyms is "undivided". Divided. Is that like double-minded? There is a verse about that somewhere. What can I do with undivided? I can give undivided attention. To family. To God. Hmmm.....it would be hard to be undivided about anything while I am dealing with busyness wouldn't it, Lord? Back to the busyness and simplifying. Maybe cleaning up and defragmenting is a lot like just simplifying.

I find that I still maintain some bad habits in my life that God is piece by piece working on rooting out. Practice makes perfect after all, and I have been practicing some of these things all my life. Too bad that I was practicing the wrong things. So, as I ponder, I can see how God has once again been cleaning up and refining my life. This time through some simplifying. I am sure that it will prepare me for something lovely.