It has been a weird week, and sorry in advance if it takes me a minute to get to my point. Our youngest has been pretty sick and that means sleepless nights, fevers, hospital trips, and trying to balance works responsibilities and chores. Thankfully, we have such a supportive family to help care for her, which means I have only had to miss a little amount of work for how sick she’s been. I know this is a week I should look at with grace as the exception to “the norm” for our family, but I could not put to words what I really felt about the status of my brain during the off time, until the other night.
To give you a little insight about me, I am a full-time working mom of three girls, 3, 6, & 8. My husband and I work in a pretty large, fast paced office, and summer time is by far the busiest and demanding season we experience. I am helping train someone while also learning a new position myself. (Shout out to the Work-From-Work-Moms, right Erika!?) Needless to say there is not a lot of “off time” in my life. It seems like when I’m home, life is just as demanding as while I’m at work. Dinner needs to be made, but first the kitchen is not clean. That’s probably because we were so tired after dinner from the night before and the girls “helped” clean up after we ate. There is always stuff to pick up, a room to clean, a sink to wipe, an endless mountain of laundry to do.
I know there are a lot of busier, larger families, with more responsibilities, more extracurricular activities, more demanding jobs. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that have a great handle on our their responsibilities. People with organized coupon books, and freezer meals prepped a week in advance, and their kids laundry all organized and put away. That’s just not our family. I would LOVE for it to be, but we aren’t there and probably won’t ever be.
Maybe its part of my personality, but I am constantly going through the list of things to do in my head. “When did we change our air filter? … our oil? … rotate the tires? … did I set up the rent on bill pay? … did we cancel that subscription?… have the girls been reading their books? … did I buy that ingredient for dinner tomorrow? … what time do I need to wake up? … when need to buy more coffee filters? … ziplock bags?… bread? … Did I email back that parent at work? … Did I discuss that weird situation with my manager and/or doctor?…” Most of the time this list starts whenever I start to sit still and be quiet, and often times that when I’m going to bed.
This week, however, has forced me to be on either end of the extreme. There has been nothing balanced, nothing moderate, nothing average about this week! It has been completely demanding one day, then mildly idle the next.
If you’re a parent, you have probably at one time been “nap-stuck.” This is where your child has struggled to nap, and now is finally asleep… on you. You can’t move for risk of waking her. To save the heartache, you stay as long as you can, so they can get the sleep that they need.
This was me on Wednesday with our sick, sleeping toddler. It was just the two of us home, and after a rough night of coughing attacks and crying, she was finally asleep, sprawled across my lap. It is in that time that you would think I could have taken a mental reprieve. A breather. Time to meditate and refresh my soul. But instead, like most people in 2017, I had my phone nearby and the TV remote close as well. I had access to binge watch an actual non-G-rated TV show for once!… or to pass that next level on my favorite app… or mindlessly scroll through Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. That is exactly what I did.
It is like an addiction to soda, or coffee. I get stuck in a pattern, frequently picking up my phone, refreshing a feed, checking notifications. It quickly becomes an involuntary action. I think to myself, “You have worked your hard being a grown up, and now you deserve the time to shut it off and fill it up with useless material…” Vine videos, cat instagrams, Pinterest recipes I will probably never try, articles about the most expensive hotdog in the world, a quiz to see what city I should vacation in based on my perfect dessert (sorry buzzfeed! You time-sucker, you!).
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a guilt trip. Simply put there is necessarily nothing wrong with that. I’ve earned this mental break. This is a stirring in my heart I felt after two days of quiet, with nothing substantial to show for it. Just a brain full of stuff that does. not. matter. I crave quiet time. I have a list of things I would do if I just had a little more time to myself; A list of books, a list of writing prompts, a few chapter I’m behind on in our Romans Study. Instead, I let time go wasted.
So here is scripture that has been brought to my mind: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14
The Message explains my heart in similar words: “I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”
I feel like my time is like the parable of “The Talents” that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 25. Two of the servants had increased the money given to them to return a profit to their master, and the third buried it instead, returning exactly what was given to him. It’s not that the third servant lost it, or gambled it, or even stole it. He did with it as he wanted and thought was acceptable, but did not have anything to gain from it, and nothing to give when his master returned.
That, my friends, is not who I want to be. I want to make an investment with my life and, in return, have something of greater value to give back as a gift to God. I want to become a better me, and that cannot be accomplished by spending away my limited times of solace to completely futile Facebook scrolling.
I feel that this will probably ring true for many. Your instrument of distraction may be different, but your issue of idle-time-wasting is the same. You maybe even feel a conviction to make a change, and that is awesome. That is the whole reason I sat down to put my thoughts to words, I felt the need for change. So let’s do this together! Hebrews 10:24 says “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” If you need a partner to help you be accountable for spending time with God each day, let me know! I sure need it as well!
I hope as you read this, you can understand that I am processing through this journey of life with open eyes and a moldable heart. This is my heart-on-my-sleeve thoughts and I pray that my experience, and the tugging of the Holy Spirit to spur me on to change for the better is something that will encourage you to take a step towards both letting go, and growing as well.
Sincerely,
Jen
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