A love of what’s important…

I have been in a deep conversation with myself for the past 6 months about who I am and what is important.  I have many hats that are required of my time.  And due to the nature of how I am made, I put a lot of weight on myself to get each of those perfect. 

But I am not perfect.

Nothing I do is perfect. 

So to find peace within myself, I need to simplify those things at which I have decided need to be done well.  Like thinning a row of beets so that you get a better crop in the end.  I just need to cut things out. 

As it stands, my focus has always been at home.  My children do not attend sports or dance.  We rarely do swim or music lessons.  With a rotating schedule like ours, one month those things would be fine, but the next they would be jumbled messes where I spend my time taking away any of the joy that may have existed with those activities because they would be so hard to keep up with.  Painfully hard.  And it would not be peaceful at all.

Even in writing this I am asking myself ‘What am I thinking?  I am depriving my children for my own comfort.  What is my comfort in the scheme of things?’  

Another blog writer and amazing woman wrote on a note of similar ilk “I am an observer and a participant in both the story of violence and the story of intentional non-violence.”  (Source:Clean by Rachel Wolf) 

I want to be a participant in intentional non-violence.  With my hands and with my tongue.  I want to watch what my kids do when they are bored. And have time to let them be bored.  I want to be gracious and kind when they make mistakes.  I want to take a deep breath and help them through their emotional fits, while at the same time not fighting my own.  And I want my children to see that mama.  The mama that can stand in the rain, and laugh at the flat tire that just made us late to youth group for the 3rd week in a row, and then slowly show them all how to change it to the spare letting all commitments of getting there on time (at all!) fly out the window.

For all this, I need time.  I need space between commitments.  I need to be able to breathe deep and full… and regularly know what that feels like.  Sometimes that space is hard to find.  But it is rarely hard to get.  It just requires saying no to the things that fill up the space so that there is room for those tiny moments that I collect.  Because those are the moments I am looking for.  Moments spent…

petting the cats,

walking through my garden,

watching the baby search for bugs under rocks,

listening to chicken song,

cooking with some really loud music and no screens in sight,

reading the same book over and over to my 2 year old, 

joining in a living-room dance party,

watching a movie so good I get lost for two whole hours,

making a meal with food I grew in my garden,

enjoying a good novel,

cleaning to the rhythm of a new song I love…. 

 

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So right now I may not volunteer very often.  I may only attend church on Sundays.  My children may not participate in sports.   I may not blog on a schedule.  My ratings may go down.  I may not even craft.  I may just live this life I have created slowly and intentionally and I may love it.  A lot.  Because giving up all of this is only for a season.  I want to be fully embedded in each season I am in.  I want to feel and love and watch with awe all of the amazing moments around me.  I am in a season of my family.  All in the same house, together.  Learning and loving and enjoying each other.  This will only be for a little while.  My oldest will be an adult 14 months from now.  The moments with us all together are ticking away by the second.  A month goes by in a flash.  The years are fleeting.  And I wouldn’t want to miss this life for the world.