Time, or the lack of it, is one of the major realities for families. You know that. You know the pain of unfinished projects -- and unfinished relationships. You have wondered how life ever became so complicated, when all you really wanted was a spouse and several kids and winter evenings playing together and summer days running across the park. And now it's the rush and the dash and the fast food and the clock. Let's share with each other our experiences regarding time. Where does your family struggle in this? What seems to make it worse? How have you learned to make it better? What answers are you still looking for? We will be sharing some of your thoughts in services this weekend at Family Life. I look forward to your comments.
Dale Travis
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Time as a family struggle is when does everyone get their needs met, who sacrifices their time to give to another family member? These are the problems of today. The mother who tries to meet everyone's needs until she becomes sick. Then, everyone just kind of stops because the one person who nurtures so well is not devoting her time to everyone else, instead, she is trying to get better to be able to give herself to others once again.
ReplyDeleteThis same person devotes her time outside her family to others in the community to help them. Then, when she is sick, the outside community tells her when she is better that they missed her.
How do we make this better? I wish I had an answer to that. I turn to God and ask him to show me what to do. It is never easy, but he always shows me a way. My faith in the Lord will guide my actions.
I am excited about the ministry of Melissa Mercer and the vision she has for prayer across our nation. It seems that we often get so busy playing church that we forget that "church" is NOT the object of our adoration and praise, but is indeed only a collection of the dedicated who want to worship and praise the creator of the universe, our Saviour, our redeemer, our LORD, our Master.
ReplyDeleteI guess as a homemaker and wife, I struggle with keeping the house clean, trying to have meals planned and ready, while homeschooling our children. Talk about multi-tasking!
ReplyDeleteIn the natural realm of things, I turn to awesome ladies that have developed great teachings in the area of home management, like the website called "FLYlady". She's taught others to "Finally Love Yourself" thus the first three letters FLY. Weekly housecleaning is referred to as "House Blessing" which helps me to realize I'm BLESSING my family by doing these things, and not simply going through the motions. She has us set aside time for quiet reflection (aka Quiet/Prayer time). Another source is a book called "The Messies Manual" which teaches you how to clean house easily and efficiently. These two sources have removed the stress and helped me replace it with the knowledge that I'm doing the best I can.
Spiritually, I turn to God's Word and to passages such as Matthew that tells me "do not worry". I think a lot of my stress and time struggles have the common root of WORRY. Do I have TIME to do this? I NEED to meet this deadline! What will people THINK of me if my house is a mess or everything in this other area of my life isn't perfect?! I need to RUN to the store, which is a perfect example of being hung by the tongue... why do I think I need to be in such a hurry? Can't I simply GO to the store. And if I DID Run, imagine the exercise! And exercise relieves stress... a golden nugget that I've found to help.
God Bless!
Time for family is important ,unfortunately these days it's a luxury. Sacrifices have to be made in order to insure the family stays intact.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we are a little selfish with our time
and sometimes we literally don't have time.
My husband had a job change about a year or so ago. He has to work very long hours.Before this job he was very involved in ministry but
now he literally does not have that time available that he used to,and what little time he does have he tries to spend with us.
Our daughter is a type 1 diabetic and even after insurance, her supplies are very expensive so his job is important to insure that we are able to give our daughter what she needs. Unfortunately My husband has had to sacrifice time he spent in ministry and with his family to take care of his family. His relationship with the lord has not changed and he's still in church every weekend.
Since this change a few people have treated him a little differently or indifferently, thinking they know all of the circumstances. We can live with that.
I believe God is understanding, I certainly understand and I am blessed to have a Christian husband who knows the importance of family.
The part that I find so confusing is when to say "no" and to what activites. I want my son to experience and participate in all the extra activites that surrond us and that he wants to be a part of; however, somedays it seems a little overwhelming. He has a class, a rehersal, a lesson or a something another every night of the week besides Friday. Then I have to factor in my 40 hours at work and the 9 hours of classes I take at AC on top of his schedual. I feel TIRED alot and wonder where I get any "me" time or even just a little free time. The house never seems to be all clean, the bills seem to not get paid on time and we feel neglected as well as guilty for neglecting; but what about the guilt of saying no or the fear of missing out on something that could be of importance to future dreams?
ReplyDeleteTime is a huge issue with our family. There are parts of the day that can be slow and easy, but as soon as 5:00pm hits it's chaos until bedtime. When the weekend hits it doesn't slow down much. Having a 16 month old baby I keep a strict time clock for when he eats his meals, takes his naps, gets his bath, etc....My husband isn't off work until 6:00pm. He then usually has homework to do for his online classes. It seems spending time together as a family is a huge blessing if it's for longer than an hour during the week. Saturdays can be a little better with my husband getting off at 4:00. That leaves him with 4 and a half hours to spend with our son until his bed time. Sunday is our only full day together as a family, and it usually flies by. We do our best to always make time to play with our little boy if there are things that can be put off to do when he goes to bed at night, but sadly that's not always the case. It's rough and frustrating at times, but we manage. Would love to have a little more time doing what I want to do, or to spend with the hubby without the kiddo. There's just not enough hours in the day. We'll just have to push through it until my husband graduates from college in a few more years. Hopefully life slows way down for us to spend some quality time together as a family!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately,I thought time would come as you got older. I am finding out this is wrong. As I have gotten older I am now more serious about the things I am serious about. God, family, and school take up my time now. Sometimes I really have to make sure I keep those things in that order. I almost did not go on the men's retreat this weekend because I really don't have the time, but then I remembered (with my wife remembering for me) that it was about this same time last year I went on a retreat and that weekend turned my life over to the Lord. If I hadn't taken that time then who knows what might have happened. You have to make time for God, even though it seems the easiest to alter if something comes up. I praise our church for keeping me focused, I praise our ministry leaders for their sacrifice and work. But most of all I praise God for his undying love and acceptance of a sinner like me.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that there is ever enough time to do everything that we want to accomplish. Perhaps this was God's design in establishing time; so that man would have to prioritize and choose what is the most important issue, activity, or person. Personally, I have found that the only way that I can have meaningful study and worship (personal time)is by doggedly refusing to allow that time to be interferred with by anything... kind of like my tithe, it comes first. My family benefits from this focus because my attitude and perspective is Christ-centered, not me-centered. When the schedule becomes about me being the one that gets it all accomplished, everthing falls apart rather quickly. I take the postion with my teen that if she wants to do something, she needs to develope a plan that can bring it to fruition. I will help her and offer suggestions, but she needs to learn what is really going to be important in her life and what the costs are to have that activity as a priority.
ReplyDeleteIf I could catch time in a bottle,
ReplyDeletethe first thing that I'd like to do,
is to save everyday til eternity ends,
then again I would spend them with you.
Sing this song to God instead of to someone here on earth. Then we might have a sense of the proper use of our time. Yes I know it doesn't work that way. we are supposed to get all wraped up in the cares of this world, our time is supposed to be precious to us. When does eternity take its proper place in the life of a christian family. We are promised to live eternally in his presence and yet our flesh craves the seperation, it keeps us worrying about time, like we don't have enough. We have enough, we have eternal time, we just need to know that and live that way.
as both mother and father in my home time is assigned. time to go to work, time to go to school, time to pick up from school, time to go to the grocery store, time to start dinner, time to clean the potty, time to do laundry, time to do homework, time to go to church. with really few hours in order to do all these things. my time is no longer my own, and I'm dealing with that. remember the times as a child when you would lay out on the lawn and look at the clouds and decide what they looked like? oh those days.
ReplyDeletePrioritize your life. We make sure we have time to get our nails done, take our kids to football practice, and to watch our favorite t.v. shows. In the big scheme of things, how truly important are these things? I say we can live without these things for the sake of reserving quality time for our families.
ReplyDeleteWe run a hectic life in our household. We each have something we do each night during the week, whether it's Monday Night Football, Youth, or Small Group. however, we have a family activity that the entire family either participates in or supports the family members who participate We also eat dinner together every evening, even if it is a drive-thru dinner night. We pray together before we eat and go to sleep. We clean house together as a family. Everyone does their part. Not only does this bring responsibility, but teaches us all to appreciate every member of the family. We operate as a unit.
We decided we cannot and will not let the world around us invade our family. If there is ever anyhting that peeks its head into our routine that does not benefit our family, we simply shut it out. We hold tribal council and vote it off the family island.
I see time as precious asset. If we pray about it, God will give us time. I do believe that we should prioritize our time. God first, family second, everything thing else comes third. As a single mom, I struggle with this. I see first hand everyday how putting work first and family second. I see how putting money first blinds people from their real issue. It's sad. It will divide families and marriages. My ex husband put his needs first over his family. His money issues, his personal issues, I craved quality family time when I was married and never got it. I'm dating a guy now who I don't get to spend a lot of quantity time with but the time we spend together is quality time. There is a HUGE difference! Needs get met when you put God first, family second and everything else third!
ReplyDeleteI don't know where the time has gone. I still feel like a kid in a grown up world, untried, uncertain and ill equipped. I have what I have always wanted, but I sometimes feel unworthy of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm twenty, don't have a significant other, not even a boyfriend yet, nor a family of my own. I hope to someday though. But as a part-time student at AC, having a part-time job also at AC time with my family is a HUGE issue. It's really not time itself, but balancing, time management. It comes to a point where I've realized throughout the past how much I've taken my immediate family for granted, along with my close family. Mostly my mother and brother. The older I've gotten I've spent less and less time with them and I've missed out on precious moments and memories. Life's about taking the time out of your day to say how are you, eat together, or play a game. Missing out causes so much distance, walls are put up, and it's such a stress on the relationship. But it's not just with family, friends, school, work, life in general or LIG. Time is a what we go through everyday, every hour, and you've got to live life in the moment and smell the roses. But most of all remember God, prayer, & reading His word. Here recently since school started back up, I have forgotten. It's a day by day process & something you've got to continuely work on. Life is so much more worth it with Him. I'm trying :) It just seems like that's not enough time, nor do I have enough energy, I'm constantly tired. Don't rely on faith, but the faithful one. Nor on your provisions, but on the provider.
ReplyDeleteI think the lack of time together is self inflicted. W have has 24 hours in a day since the start of growing up we had plenty of time together as a family and still had outside activities. Now days people are in such a rush to do more things that they loose sight of whats important. all the things that were made to make our lives easier and lees complicated have actually had the opposite effect. i rember when i had to be with my mother to talk to her, now i can be any where, that is not the way it is suppose to be. E-mail saves time communicating but is it really the commuication that we need. we are the MTV generation we want instant gratification and no attention span to speak of. that is a real problem we have no face to face communication any more and that means less time. Life moves way to fast now days and that is a cancer in my opinion. we need to look up for an answer and towards our family.
ReplyDelete