Taking Time to do Life Well

I want to enjoy life not hurry through it. I don’t want my calendar to be so full that there isn’t time to sit around and laugh with friends and spend hours talking on the porch with my husband. I want margin. I don’t want one thing to take precedent over the other. I want family to be a priority. I want the investments I make here to be relational not monetary. I don’t want to wish away today because I’m so focused on what tomorrow could bring. I don’t want to consider hard work punishment but let God use it as a tool to mold me. I want to worship God for the presence he plays in my every days not merely as a figure or a past relic. I want to support our neighbors, friends, and family. I don’t want to be too busy to have conversations that could change everything or nothing. I want to spend time finding the good in others instead of assuming the bad. I want to live with intentionality so today doesn’t just fade into tomorrow.

How?

I am only speaking for me but I imagine it will take slowing down. I imagine it involves not telling people I’m busy when they ask how I am because let’s be honest that just shuts them down to asking for encouragement, help, or just a friend.  I’ll say no so that I can say yes to what I know I’ve been called to. I’ll say no so that I can commit to saying yes faithfully to my family, my calling, and Gods tasks for my life. I’ll say no because not every opportunity that comes across our inbox requires a yes.

The way my life is running now when will I have time? Time to do life well. A friend of mine was telling me she just didn’t know if she had the capacity for lots of kids and crazy life. I think that’s because the standard we have set for ourselves only works if you’re a crazy insomniac with multi-tasking abilities.

I know I use my mom as an example a lot but she set such an amazing example growing up. She wasn’t room mom, she didn’t run for president of our PTA, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t bake homemade treats for my kindergarten class (I have zero scars from this). She did however get up every morning before us and make breakfast. She was at the bus stop when we got home and she tucked us in most nights and I never got the message that her business was anything more than life (and she very much had one).

I look down the road and I keep thinking if I want the life I believe God has called me too something has to give.  I read somewhere that “Busyness is not the equivalent of holiness” and I want to add that it doesn’t always produce a full life.  I want to be known for loving my family, friends, and neighbors well and right now and I think that takes intentionality not busyness.