Balance

This past weekend was such a gift! Bryan and I had a weekend away; we dropped the kiddies off with their loving grandparents and we drove in peace to the beach! While there we celebrated the marriage of Bryan’s cousin and enjoyed time with family. We also enjoyed time together, just us!

We spent our time well – we didn’t want to waste any of our precious alone-time! We both woke up before the sun (I guess we were just really excited to have the freedom to do anything that we wanted to start right away!) So we biked to the beach and enjoyed a walk/run together. We biked home and showered, then went downtown for some delicious breakfast. We then spent some time back home before meeting up with family and beginning the wedding festivities.

The quality of our time together was amazing, beginning with that long, quiet car ride and lasting throughout the entire weekend. One of our goals for our time was to talk intentionally about our time, specifically time spent working and time as a family. One of my biggest “complaints” lately about my day-to-day has been that I have too much to do and not enough time. It feels like all my daily tasks are jumbled in my head and the second I get a spare moment to address one of those tasks, I have no idea how to prioritize and decide what to do first, that I get even more frustrated and give up.

So we came up with a plan! I used some wisdom from a really awesome top Beachbody coach and sort of mapped out my week, hour by hour, assigning each hour with the thing I would focus my attention on. I decided on my top 6 priorities, and each of those priorities gets certain hours of each day!

We started with this plan on Monday and it went GREAT!!! I was so excited. Then, around 4am on Tuesday morning (an hour that is to be given to sleep…) James woke up with a stomach bug. This, obviously, brought the “plan” to a screeching halt.

What I learned from this experience is that I want to plan, I want to be wise with my time, and I want to give the people and tasks I love most my focused attention. BUT I cannot be a slave to the “plan.” My schedule is good, it is well thought out and fair, but it cannot be the end-all, be-all because at the end of the day, God is in control. I want to honor my schedule, but I want to honor God more. So if that means canceling some work hours to tend to my sick boy, or moving nap time up by 2 hours because everyone is exhausted from being up since 4am, so be it.

We got back to the plan on Wednesday and things went smoothly. I’m glad to know I have a general guide for how my days can be spent, but I’m also glad to know I have a God who keeps me on my toes!

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.

Proverbs 16:9