My Utmost For Highest -- March 23
I read that and thought, "Yeah, wow...how much He's changed me since this!"
:)
If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn’t ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, "Oh, I can explain that."
What is the proof that carnality has gone? The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, "If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!" And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.
I read that and thought, "Yeah, wow...how much He's changed me since this!"
:)
I was wondering...how do you find/make the time to be active online, to write fiction, and to also be a wife, a mother, and an active member of your church?
(and sleep? :)
I usually start preparing dinner around 4:00 - 4:30 to have it ready for 5:30, and I don't make big complicated meals that involve a lot of babysitting -- mostly casseroles or pastas with salad, or things I can cook on my electric grill. When I have guests coming, I try to make as much of the meal as possible ahead of time, or do a crock pot recipe. We always sit down as a family to have dinner, but my husband and I eat very quickly by habit and the kids don't eat very much as a rule, so that's usually done in fifteen minutes...!
Our church involvement (including choir practice, Sunday School, occasional nursing home ministry, hospitality for visiting speakers and so on) usually keeps us busy for most of Sunday. But aside from times when church people need specific help or when I'm asked to speak at a midweek ladies' meeting, that's usually all.
As for the "wife" part... H. and I are both introverts, and neither one of us begrudges the other the chance to be alone. So a lot of evenings he'll be working on a renovation project or watching TV, while I read a book or do computer stuff in another part of the house. We stay in touch by talking over dinner and at bedtime. Another couple (especially a more emotionally geared wife) might feel that this is not enough "together time", but it seems to work well for us.
I like sleep too much to deprive myself of it, plus my husband acts as a sort of reverse-alarm clock (as he says he can't sleep properly if I'm not there), so I usually go to bed around 10:30 or 11 at the latest...
I'm not obsessively organized or obsessively clean (*looks guiltily at dusty bookshelves*), but I do keep my house relatively neat and in order, by picking things up and organizing them as I go throughout the day rather than by leaving them to pile up into one exhausting end-of-the-day heap... that helps a lot. I write upcoming events, obligations, and deadlines on my wall calendar where I will (hopefully) see them often and not forget too easily. But really, I could be a lot more busy than I am, and sometimes when I see all the good things that other women in the church seem to be involved with (including things like home-schooling and regular hospitality) I think that I should be...!
I don't know if that answers your question?
And don't think you ought to be more busy because other people are busy. If you don't go through life feeling stressed out and taxed to your limits, you're in much better time-management shape than most people around (including myself), and you're living more as God wants us to than exhausted-busy people are.
So relax. Enjoy the fruit of your labor and make your family your priority, and let the relativey-peripheral ministries be a part of your life when God encourages you to commit yourself more. Different stages in life, different amounts of time to do outside-the-family things.
God bless, and thanks!