As my days fill up and overflow I have to think long and hard about who I need to keep my commitments to. It is easy to let my quiet time fill up with noise. It is easy to let me overflow spill onto my older kids and my husband. Those who are closest to me get the least of me, and that is not right.
I'm just going to have to get humble and start letting people know that I have taken on too much. My kids need me. My husband needs me. I need God. All the other stuff is going to have to be left undone. Mediocre is going to have be good enough. If God is happy with it, and Rick is happy with it then everyone else is just going to have to be disappointed. This is making my chest tighten as I type.
Here is my advice to those who still have some semblance of order in their lives. Stick close to God at all times. Make time to be in His word and prayer, don't let life encroach on that. Write down the things that you love, the things that make you happy and that give you energy. Those are gifts, thank God for them, protect them. If you don't write them down you will forget them, and they will start to slip away as more demands are brought into your life. Make a date night with your husband. Make it once a week if at all possible, and if not at least every other week. I know it sounds crazy to some of you, but DO IT! As your kids get older watch them, learn what gifts God has given to them, write those down too. Protect their time so that they can develop the things they love. If you don't pay attention to these things life will start coming at you and pull you in directions you never meant to go.
Rick and I recently started to talk and pray and write down the things that are important to us. We have looked at our lives and realized that somewhere along the line we veered off course. Today we wake up an wonder how in the world this happened. The good news is that we see it. We are taking steps to make course corrections to get us back to a path that will take us where we had dreamed of going. We have a lot of great things going in our lives, but they have ceased to be blessings and have become burdens. Some are things I thought would be good for our children, they are free, they are wonderful, and my children hate it. Some are things my children wanted to do and they sounded good at the time, but we didn't count the cost. Some are just plain stupid lack of planning. Some were unexpected surprises brought by God to get my head up so I can see correctly.
We live in a community full of blessings. It is a feast for the soul, but like any feast we need wisdom and self control. I need to look to God and ask what is good for me, and how much is enough. Some of these blessings are meant for someone else, and I should not be so greedy. I need to learn to say "no, thank you." I need to stop when we are full. When I have over consumed I need to stop moaning, deal with the pain like a big kid, and learn my lesson. I need to repent of my lack of self control and do my best to make it right. It is all too easy to think that just because a blessing is right in front of you, you should grab it. Sometimes the righteous thing to do is to thank God and walk away. He provides so much more than we can even wish for, we need to have the wisdom to recognize that we don't need to pack it all into our life.
I need to get back to the basics. I need my quiet time with God every morning, studying His word is important to me, and flows out to the rest of my life. We have been parched for too long from my lack in this. I need the fellowship of good friends, friends that know me well enough to tell me when I am being stupid and blind. Reading to my children is a delight to me and to them. Getting outside to play is so important for every one's peace of mind. Our evenings are precious right now and I need to be careful not to let them fill up with things that distract us from what needs to be done. I need to protect my kids from feeling like they are failing when the fault is mine. I am recognizing that most of all I need to slow down. There are a lot people around us that can go farther, faster, and I am glad to watch them go. We live in an impressive community and God has been so very good to us all. I just need to remember to breathe, and to give my kids space to discover who they are. I've been trying to stuff them into a mold that isn't for us. Forgive me Lord, and lead me back to the narrow way you made just for us.
I'm thankful for...
Kids with tans
Ducks sitting in cold water
Jr. High plays, they are memorable
Friends who keep me on task
Doctors who learn so very much and love their patients
Teachers who spend so much time with my kids
Prayer warriors that sustain me when I know nothing of it
Education in so many different forms
Spring always full of surprises
Sleep, oh how I miss you
Dentists that keep our teeth in our heads, and sometimes even white
1 comment:
I love this. Sage advice.
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