Sunday 16 October 2011

Slow Me Down Lord

This week, the men came to repaint the road markings in our Close. because the “Slow” signs, and the warning triangles on the speed-bumps had almost worn away.

As I watched them working, I remembered this poem by Wilfred A. Peterson – I am by nature an active, busy woman – and sometimes I need to stop, and say clearly and loudly to myself “Slow Down Ang!”

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Slow me down,Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music of the sighing streams
That live in my memory.

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Help me to know
The magical restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations

Of slowing down to look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend or to make a new one;
To pat a stray dog,
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.

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Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew slowly and well.
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Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life's enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of my great destiny.

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Slow me down, Lord!

4 comments:

  1. Just perfect! I'm still trying to relax since church and luncheon this morning. Not going so fast on the outside, but I'm rolling downhill fast on the inside. ~Liz . . . . . so the phone rings. Even Sunday School is a spiritual battlefield. No lie.

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  2. You know this is an uncanny end to my day! I hid in the boys' room this morning- they were all downstairs- because I couldn't face the day, so I sat on one of their little chairs and contemplated their (newly tidy) bookcase for a while. BUT THEN we got to church and the boys sat still, for a change, and words of great import came cascading down- even one of my summer verses used in prayers. Then we had a fabulously mellow apple press day in Apple Orchard County. And now here I am tracing rainbows and being reminded of it all again. 'Tis good indeed.

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  3. they painted the lines on our road a short while back, but they are not straight, not sure if they had to swerve to miss something, or what?

    Love that poem,

    Gill in Canada

    http://thatbritishwoman.blogspot.com

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  4. That is an excellent poem, Ang. Thanks for sharing it, and the great photos too!

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