Solitude - The Birthplace of Change

Returning from a quiet, restful week of camping in the woods with my boys, I'm reminiscent on the things my soul is learning. 
Time, I'm finding in my older years, is a quirky thing. The clock seems to speed up and the awareness of my own mortality is ever before me. This awareness leaves me pondering on the daily choices I make, how I choose to make the best of whatever time I'm granted left. While watching my ever growing boys splash in the water, I soak up the warm sunshine from the shoreline and I'm given the gift of what I haven't seemed to have had in forever: TIME. Time to just be. To think. To pray. To read and process. 
Quietness is something there is not much of within our home. Not that I'm complaining. I'm grateful for the hustle and bustle that is everyday life. Of little boys (constant) chatter, meaningful conversations with (now adult...when did this happen?!) our daughters, and friends-that-have-become-family who frequent our house. Life is indeed...full. And often heavy. We are in a fruitful, busy season of life - one that is equally rewarding as it is challenging. The past few years I've felt a sickness in my heart that I haven't quite been able to put into words until sitting on the sand beside the lake amongst nothing but creation all around me. And suddenly, the word finds me: Overwhelmed. 
Too much noise. 
Too much busy. 
Too much distraction. 
Some of it unavoidable, but some most definitely within my own choosing. 
Quiet is hard for the culture in which we live. Many fear it. It's in the quiet that we're forced to deal with the hard life things. Quiet forces us to process, both positive and negative things. 
We subconsciously drown the quiet every day. With social media, entertainment, music, activities. While theses things aren't terrible in and of themselves, we often use them to avoid dealing with the things we don't want to deal with in life. Conversations we don't want to have. Situations we don't want to deal with. Heartaches we don't want to face. Within the busy, relationships are easily neglected and we become more and more self-absorbed (perhaps in self-preservation; survival for the "overwhelmed") until we find ourselves in isolation: both from people and from God. And yet - because of all the noise, we're unaware that we're completely alone. We have a false sense of connectedness to those physically around us, while have little to no depth to those relationships. We're more connected to our smart phones and the imaginary worlds therein than those an arms length away.
Isn't it ironic? 
In the quiet I'm reminded of just how much I crave solitude. Not isolation, but solitude (there is a huge difference). Moments of reflection, prayer, praise and quiet pondering. Re-centering. There's something holy about solitude; perhaps for you are left alone with The One who sees and knows you. In solitude is the nakedness of who I am is brought forth. 
In this I feel the stirrings of change within areas of my heart that had long since grown dusty and stale. 
Change. 
It is coming.