Monday, 27 April 2009

• Balancing Act

  Okay, so I did not intend to write much now, but having just titled this post "Balancing Act" because of the pictures I'm posting I'm thinking: Is life not one big balancing act??  For me, it is!!  I am always having to remind myself and my children that there is a time for everything. I have found that FOR ME - if I'm going to use my time wisely, that I have to be intentional about it. Being wise with my time doesn't come naturally to me. By nature I am absolutely not a scheduler! I'm a list maker - and so (like the poem quoted by Elizabeth Elliot, Do the next thing, says) " all through the hours the quiet words ring, like a low inspiration, 'Do the next thing' ". I've always preferred not to have my entire life bound to specific time frames and what not. Even still, being a wife and mom who has had to work on using my time wisely, I've begun to believe that my not attempting to schedule more things is working to my disadvantage. So recently I decided to make a personal "home management" plan. I'm still in the progress of perfecting it to "fit" our family. I want to be committed to it simply because God has said there is a time for everything and a lot of the time I feel like there certainly isn't time for EVERYTHING. But God said there is. This is a point blank fact. Knowing this, is part of knowing and finding how to use my time wisely. Jonathan can be heard quoting from Ecclesiates 3 in conversation with the kids every so often and I always find it a refreshing reminder to my soul as well, because it is a God thing. God is a God of order. I don't want to serve my "master plan/schedule". I want it to serve me while I serve my Master. For He knows we need some order in our lives rather than randomly doing whatever we want, whenever we want. It's seen in his creation:

  There is day and there is night,
  a week to work and a day to rest,
  (and as we often specifically remind our children)
  a time to be awake and a time to sleep, 
  a time to play and a time to work,
  a time to make a mess and a time to clean up, 
  a time to talk and a time to be quiet,
  a time to be goofy and a time to be serious...etc.
  
  When I get tagged as being the "Show Stopper" it is always nice to remind the kids (and myself!) that God ordained our lives to be this way (although serving Him does require one to be spontaneous as well - but the neat thing is that I'm believing now that more of a schedule can afford me to serve God much more spontaneously)! 

  .......................... And now for those pictures I downloaded of our balancing act.

  

  Has my little girl really grown to be this long?
  She's been practicing balancing on her hands and head and can now do it!

  

  Joseph's been practicing but hasn't quite mastered it.
  "Mommy, can you do it?"
  
  
  
  Mommy can do it.... and so Natalie wanted to take a picture.
  Next, mommy tried to see if she could still do cart wheels. She could!
  But she did one too many and pulled a muscle. She is not so young anymore!
  
  Without being prompted (and probably feeling left out), Claire decided to show us what trick
  she could do.We all cheered and gave her a big hand clap for her balancing act!
  
  
  
  rising slowly but steadily...... to being quite proud of herself!
  
  

  May we take pleasure in balancing our lives to the glory of our God, taking pleasure in
  our enjoyment and "in all our toil", for they are gifts from God (Eccl 3:13). 
  I think I'll end this post with the Word of God.

  Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 9-13

   ¹For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...

   ....⁹What gain has the worker from his toil? ¹⁰I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹¹He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ¹²I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; ¹³also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

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