{enjoy the silence}

Well, hello there friends.

Its Thursday.

And I've been thinking a bit over the past week or so about this blog...and what I've been talking about and sharing lately.

And what I haven't been talking about.

While I have really been enjoying participating in WIWW {What I Wore Wednesdays}, linking up my Instagram photos, and sharing a few home decor projects, I feel like my real life has taken quite a backseat on here.

And my blog is called This Girl's Life for crying out loud. Something just isn't right here.

Maybe I've been focusing on fashion and beautiful pictures because they are a fun distraction from life. And let's face it...life is hard. It is tiring, exhausting, overwhelming. And mine has definitely been all of those things lately. But it has also been full of love and raw emotion and feelings that I don't even know how to verbalize. {I'm probably going to be rambling a bit here so either stick with me or just leave now while you still have your brain cells in tact.}

One thing that I don't share much, if at all, on here is my faith.

I guess I would call myself a Christian. But I really hate to place a label on myself because if anything, I'm a spiritual person who believes in God. And the golden rule. And the rest I'm just figuring out along the way.


For the past 5 years, I've worked at a seminary. It is a Quaker seminary...which has opened up a whole new {and just as confusing} religious world to me. But let me tell you one thing the Quakers know how to do that I love...

Silence.

Source: entermyattic.blogspot.de via DieTee on Pinterest

They love silence. They wait...and wait...and wait some more to hear God speak to them.

I have to admit this whole silence concept was really uncomfortable to me when I first started working here. We start our meetings with it, and sometimes end them in the same way. I didn't know what to do for the first few months. Close my eyes? Pray? Twiddle my thumbs under the table?

I felt SO awkward.

But now I love the silence. I look forward to it. {what mother of two almost four year olds wouldn't?}

I use it to breathe deeply. To focus on my surroundings. The sounds, the smells, the textures. I use it to become fully present in the moment and give thanks that I'm living in it {even if it is at the beginning of a three hour faculty meeting}.

I've even found myself driving in silence lately. I crave it because my world has been SO loud lately. And not just actual noise...but also so many tasks and "to-do's" cluttering my mind like static that you just can't turn off. I'm finding that even a minute of silence does wonders for helping to quiet that static and help me re-focus.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a lot more to me than a cute shirt from Kohl's or a great find from TJ Maxx. 

And I need to share more of that with you. So this was a start.  :)