Take Five

It doesn't take much these days to make any woman feel like life is just...busy.  We find ourselves running from place to place between work, errands, and taking children to various activities.  Or how about frantically trying to finish housework before our husbands get home and supper isn't even close to being finished.  In our busyness, we may find that we don't take time, or feel like we have the time, to tend to our child one-on-one.

There are days when I find myself like this and I have to remind myself to just take five.  Take five minutes, get on my son's level, and show him that in my busyness, he is still my boy and he is my delight. 

So I encourage you as a parent, stop and take five.  Sit down with them in your lap.  Pick them up and dance with them.  Lay on the floor with them and tickle them.  Instead of just giving them five minute warnings (ie five minutes until bedtime, meal time, bath time, etc.), truly give them five minutes of YOU even when you don't feel like you have the time...because you do!

Hand-Held Captive

I was sitting in Sunday School class this past Sunday, as my teacher's words spoke directly to my heart.  He said, "What has God been telling you to do, but you keep telling Him 'not now?'  It didn't take a thought for me to know EXACTLY what God has been telling me to do.

You see, I have fallen into the enslavement that so many do these days.  It's the overwhelming need to have a small electronic device attached to me at all times.  For most it is their phones.  To save money, we don't have smart phones, so for me it has been my IPod Touch.  It's very similar to an IPhone, but requires Wi-Fi to access the Internet, and while it can, it's primary purpose is not to make calls.  Actually, it's primary purpose is for music, but for me it was for social networking and e-mail.

While these things are not "bad" per se, for me it has become a hindrance.  I would find myself constantly picking it up, and browsing Instagram while doing housework.  Or I would check to see if I had just ONE more notification from someone who liked my Facebook status.   I always thought of myself as multitasking, but the truth is, I was time wasting.

So my resolution was to take a week off from my beloved IPod.  I sent texts to all my friends, stored my IPod in a drawer, and limited my time to FB Messenger and e-mail on the computer for business only.  There have been so many times when I have gone to reach for my IPod on my night stand first thing in the morning, or the last thing at night, to remember it's not there.  I feel like a smoker who just needs to have that cigarette in hand, even more than smoking it.

Perhaps this all sounds a little crazy, maybe a tad dramatic.  Or maybe it sounds all too familiar.  Do you find yourself enslaved to an object similar to IPod?  For months, I could hear the Holy Spirit convictions, but I just kept saying  "not now."  Last Sunday I finally said "I submit to you, Lord!"