These garden chairs remind me to come and sit for awhile. They are good pondering chairs. A phrase from a devotional prompt suggests if I am to “live in a moment, poke around it, feel its texture and know its color and nuance”, I need to sit with it long enough to know and sense God’s presence sitting with me.

Sometimes sitting with a moment and sensing God’s presence can happen in a prayer garden, a waiting room, or even while I am doing something…slicing strawberries with a grandchild, gardening, working. I believe my homework can have these sitting moments. This comes harder than the still and the beautiful circumstance, but it happens when I find the still and the beautiful whatever I am doing.

I consider in what ways I can be deliberate so that the sweet tension of rest and work, reflect and respond, commune and connect, worship and serve is balanced. I can be engaged with God, and at the same time recognize and respond to the connection He desires for me with people and work. Is this daily choosing and juxtaposition practicing the presence of God? I think so. I know He is present. I don’t practice Him like piano, stopping when I think I have it or when I have done enough and have another task. He is and He is with me.