My Cup Runneth Over

My cup runneth over...I should be thankful.

My cup runneth over with children and chaos, dishes and laundry, messes and tasks.  I know that I should be thankful, but so often I have to admit that I am not.  Instead I long for peace and order, quiet and solace.  I crave to just be alone in my house, to have opportunity to catch up, to get ahead of the chores without someone following behind messing things back up.  I want to have time to quietly reflect with God without someone chattering in my ear.  I would love to be able to type a simple post like this without having with a squirmy four year old on my lap.  But that is not the way it is.  That is not my cup.

I am truly thankful to God for my cup - the place He has brought me in life.  I don't desire someone else's cup.  Sometimes I just wish it wasn't so tiresome to carry, that it felt more like a blessing than a burden. I know the things that overflow my cup are gifts.  Why can't I handle it all better? Why am I exhausted?  Am I placing extra burdens into my cup that God never intended for me?  How do I recognize those?  What part of this balancing act do I let fall.  Which things are not eternally significant and should be dropped?  I suppose that it is healthy to ask these things.  It is good to continually check to make sure we are still on the right path and not become complacent to God's voice in our lives.

So, as the Christmas season ramps up in all of its busy glory, I am stopping to question.  Is all that I am doing and participating in actually glorifying to Jesus?  It's His birthday we are celebrating here, so it really should be.  Are there burdens that I am placing on myself or my family that have no eternal significance?  That being said, you may not receive a Christmas card from me.  Don't be offended. I just might have decided that family Christmas devotions were a higher priority this year.  I have already simplified our Christmas decor this year.  I may not even bake a single Christmas cookie.  I figure that my family will still have plenty of opportunities to eat them and we will have less temptation to over indulge.  Maybe we will bake them in January when we have more time and can let the children do more of it because we are not in a rush to merely get them done and checked off the list.

This morning I am not merely going over my to-do list, but I am praying over each of these items on it and seeking guidance from my Helper to know which are my priorities and which I can just let go.  I can't do that on my own; only God knows what is truly important in the long term.

Time Management

It's that time of year again...back to school time.  So, you're like, "Don't you homeschool?  Don't you even homeschool year round?"  Yup, yes I do.  But there is nothing like sales for school supplies and hearing all my friends preparations to send their children back to school to make me feel the need for some planning and regrouping.

First, I always have to ask myself "why?"  Why in the world don't I send my children to school and take this enormous burden to educating them off of myself?  That's a whole other topic that I am not going to go into right now, but suffice to say, I know that this is God's calling for me and the right thing to do for my family.  It is good to think about that and remind myself why I go to this effort.

Next, I feel the need to plan things out and make sure we are on course.  Although we school year round, I find that I get a bit slack in the summer.  By the end of the summer the lessons are getting very relaxed.  This year I even feel like I have let our tried and true routines slide quite a bit, too.  It is time give our little homeschool a kick in the pants.

So, I am thinking a lot about our daily schedule and how to make it all fit.  There is so much that I need to squeeze into a day.  Without careful planning, it is just not all going to happen.  I realize that I can't figure this out on my own; I need help.  So, I have been seeking God's Wisdom during my morning quiet time.  I'll share a bit of what I have discovered:

"So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air." 1 Corinthians 9:26

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33

"Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time." Colossians 4:5 (Emphasis mine)

"For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?"  Luke 14:28

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16

"O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!"  Psalm 39:4-5

"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." James 4:13-17

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:"  Ecclesiastes 3:1

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,"  Ephesians 5:15

"And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.'"John 2:4

"And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed." Mark 1:35

"So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God." 1 Peter 4:2

There is much that God has to say about time management.  Lessons that I learn from this are:

• God desires us to use our time wisely.
• God wants us to plan ahead.
• When God causes circumstances to change, we need to roll with it.
• We are to put God first in our priorities.
• There are "seasons" for everything. Blocks of time for each purpose we have.
• Jesus had His time planned out.
• Jesus got up early to pray to God.

I am really trying to think this through and apply it to my life.  I am in the process of mapping out my days into blocks of time (seasons) so that it is possible to get all I need to do done.  But as I type this, I realize that I am out of time. (How ironic!) So, I will have to share that in more detail on another day.  Until then, God's speed to you!

Photo:  My Regulator Clock that hangs in my living room

Time is of the Essence

I can't believe that over a week has past since I have updated my blog. Where does the time go?

God has given us this gift of TIME. So often I do not appreciate it. So often I waste it. Life for me right now is exceptionally busy. There is so much to get done in a day and often I am wishing for just a little more time. I suppose if I was given more hours for my day, I wouldn't have the energy to use them anyway. I do believe God knows what he is doing and gives us just the right amount of time to do the things He has planned for us. So my prayer has been for Him to magnify the time I have. You know how there are times that time just flies by and you feel like you haven't accomplished much at all and other times when you can be amazngly productive in a short period of time. I really think that is God's doing. He is, after all, the creator time.

Here is what God says about time:

1 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born
and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time
to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a
time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones
and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a
time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a
time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a
time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

This is a good reminder to me that although God wants me to accomplish much, He doesn't want me to do it all at the same time. I need to remember that I don't always need to be multi-tasking, but to live IN each moment and focus on the one thing He has given me to do at that very time. It may be cleaning, working or just sitting and hugging one of my little ones.

I chose this photo for this post because it was a taken with a long exposure. Of course, in terms of photography, a long exposure is 5 seconds which doesn't sound very long at all in terms of life. But this photo was taken well after sunset and the sky was pretty dark. It amazes me what you can see by taking just a little more time. The residual light from the sunset gives the clouds an eerie orange glow while the first stars of the night are apparent. Kinda cool!

Have a great day and appreciate the gift of your moments of time!