Life is busy.  I rarely meet a family who isn’t going lots of places and involved in all kinds of worth while persuits.  We all serve in church capacities, community groups, and in our families.  Of course this list doesn’t even mention all the things we do to provide for the needs of our families and to make the world a better place.  Yes, there are lots of things to do.  I am like the rest, I live just about every minute of my life anxiously engaged in goodness. 

I used to worry about not having enough time.  I would often lament to my husband and friends about not having enough time.  However, I have made a consious effort to change that lament, and this is why.  A couple of years ago I read a great book called “The Power of Truth.”  In that book, William Jordan says that the only thing we have is time.  He said that it’s not the amount of time we have that is worth discussing, but what we do with the gift of time we have.  We all have 24 hours in a day.  We all get the same gift each day.  What do we do with it? 

These are some of the things I don’t do with it:

I don’t watch television (we do, however, watch one movie a week as a family)

I don’t waste time getting offended

I don’t think too much about what is on my to do list

I don’t sleep longer than is needful

I try to go to bed at a decent hour to preserve my health

I don’t complain

I don’t get sucked into digital devices

Using Time As a Blessing

These are the things I do to use my time wisely.  I call them “taking the day on” because I have chosen that these are the most important things, and the things which will bring me eternal happiness. 

1. Pray morning, night, and always

2. Study Scriptures and write in my journal

3. Connect to my children deeply by looking at them and learning with them

4. Work hard in my home, yard, and for others

5. Take time to uplift another

6. Magnify my calling as wife, mother, neighbor, church member, and citizen

7. Be grateful by noticing what God does for me each day and the beauty he shows me

8. Feel accomplished for what I have done with the day and don’t regret or lament

9. Read good books

10. Laugh and play with my spouse and my children. 

This list isn’t in any particular order. 

A friend said to me once.  “Nicholeen, I don’t know you do all the things you do.  I could never teach parenting stuff like you do because I never get things done.  I should fix my schdule to be more like yours.” 

Here is the secret to my schedule which I shared with her.  “Do what feels right and stopping comparing the rest.”  My life isn’t a well oiled machine as much as it is focused on connecting with the important people in it as much as possible.  The important people are God, spouse, children, self, family, friends, and aquaintances.  Connect, connect.

Today

Today is a new day. It is your day!  Isn’t it wonderful?  We live in a time of downers.  A time of stress, worry, fatigue, emotion, fear, and being busy.  This is a lie.  We live at a time where the common citizen has more power than ever before.  A time when parents have truth at their fingertips to instruct and inspire their children.  A time when we make the choices for our own happiness.  A time which has been fortold for many years.  A time of spiritual high.  Oh, sure, there are spiritual lows too.  The divide grows wider all the time, but our spirits only grow stronger because of it. 

This is our day!  This is every day!  What will we do with it? 

With each story I read to my children and each spontaneous thought I share with my friends I will connect.  I will look deeply into people’s hearts and share my heart with them.  That is what we should do.  How many times have you stopped the unimportant for the important today?  Let the phone ring, and play LEGOs instead.  Your six year old will love you for it. 

Take the day on.  Let yourself love it, and let the stressful feelings leave.  I am convinced those stressful, anti-purpose feelings are specifically meant to destroy our purposes and our joy. The Devil is so cunning.  Some how he makes us believe that we need to feel stressed to be doing good.  So, we plan the stress, and then run from it.  We play Satan’s game.  The only way to get out of the game is to buy into another mentality.  The abundance mentality; which tells us we all have 24 hours in a day, and that is enough.  In fact, it is the whole reason we came here and the best blessing we have.  

Nicholeen’s Parenting blog is http://teachingselfgovernment.com 

Buy her book Parenting A House United here http://teachingselfgovernment.com/catalog/products-0