Priorities

Everyone is busy.  Especially at this time of the year.  Even though we don’t want to be too busy, we love busy. 

“How are you?”

“Busy!” 

Being busy can be good.  Grant and Jenna had a great fall sports season.  Those are great learning and growing experiences.  We are starting basketball season, always a highlight of our winter.

Busy can get you out of stuff too.  When asked to do something we don’t really want to do anyway, we can plead busy.  And everyone is like, yeah ok you are busy.  Busy is a free pass.

My friend and I were debriefing after a conference about busyness with our kids and the many things we are involved in.  She was wondering if it wouldn’t be just as beneficial to stay home and play a board game as it is running to yet another event or club.

I agree.  We run in so many directions trying to please the kids. Or ourselves as Moms.  There are lots of good things out there to be involved in.  If you have a few kids, before you know it the busy train is out of control.

Whether we get involved in too much due to trying to keep the kids happy or trying to fill in the empty the result can be the same:  total drain of quality family time. 

It’s hard to find a balance.  It’s hard to say no.  When I say no or back out of things I worry about hurting people’s feeling or letting them down. 

As I’m getting further along the parenting road, it’s easier to see the big picture.  My aim isn’t to be involved in as much as I can.  I’ll never be able to give my kids every opportunity no matter how hard I try.

My job is to point my kids to Christ.  My job is to be there for them.  That should be an honor and a privilege from God, not a burden I try to run away from.

So I put my money where my mouth is.  I don’t know how much worth that statement has because my mouth is way bigger than any  amount of money I’ll ever have.  Maybe I bit the bullet and quit.

We backed out of a club.  We backed out of a lesson.  I don’t feel bad about it at all.  I feel free.  I’m less of a wreck about getting to all our stuff.  The kids don’t really seem to care.  In fact, they are happy about it.

Last night I decided not to run out on my family to get to Bible study social night.  I don’t like skipping things but we were having a great dinner.  There was much laughter.  Then we got out Scrabble and played that with the older kids. I realized I didn’t have to bug out.  And I didn’t want to.

Our family has a favorite TV show.  All of us love it.  We named our cat after one of the characters.  We don’t have cable so we have to buy a season pass on iTunes and download it each week.  So we have to watch it on the computer.   The first night the kids moved the couches and chairs and set them up movie theater style.  I wasn’t too thrilled with that at first.  But as I was in the kitchen making popcorn, I thought big picture.

In ten years will I mind that we moved the furniture one night a week and ate popcorn in the living room?  Or will I remember these glory days of the family all together? 

TV nights and game nights solidify this fact in my mind:  THIS IS THE STUFF!  This is the stuff that matters.  Not if they were in gymnastics or hockey or dance or art club or girl scouts or boy scouts or 4H.  Doing stuff together is my priority.  Everything else better be ready to get out of the way.