Sidetracked

So I've been on a reading frenzy...

Best Family Adventures of San Luis Obispo County by Jennifer Best (Wonderful Lady)
The Wonder of Girls by Michael Gurian
The Bible by God :)
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger
and last but most certainly not least, Sidetracked Home Executives by Pam Young and Peggy Jones

The latter is the one I'm about to drone on about. I wear many hats (in no particular order): wife, mom, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, friend, Chair/Vice-Chair, Prayer Coordinator (the irony!!), Pod Mom, Realtor, Office Manager, Operations Manager, and home maker... phew! And naturally as you may know all of these hats come with their own little sub-hats. And some of the sub-hats are just little gifts that keep on giving.

It is impossible to wear all those hats and get ANYTHING done. Without a plan, that is. So I picked up a book called Sidetracked Home Executives with high hopes of being able to get myself under control and on some sort of a schedule. I dutifully read all the beginning chapters, got my color coded card stock, and created my card file system exactly as directed. At which point I immediately quit reading.

It's been several weeks now and I am still struggling to get through what I decided needed to be done before I could get started with the actual schedule in the card file box. I still have about 35 cards to go before I will be where I want to be. In the meantime the days go by and the stack gets bigger because we all "live". We eat, sleep, change our clothes, bathe, do homework, and all sorts of other stuff that makes for something more to clean up. So today I've picked the book back up in an effort to figure out just how to actually GET STARTED with this blissful life full of organization and checking things off when I stumbled upon this passage:

"... This place looks like a cyclone hit it! I started in the hall closet, and I was doing great until I ran into the Monopoly game. I took it into the kids' room and they wanted to know how to play it. We played for just two hours, and I realized, 'hey, I've gotta get back to that hall closet,' so I started AGAIN and found the flashlight. It didn't have batteries, so I went to the kitchen to put batteries on the grocery list. I couldn't find a pen, so I went to my purse. The only thing I could find to write with in there was a pencil that needed to be sharpened. The sharpener was back in the kitchen, but I discovered that it was missing its handle. Luckily I remembered that the last time I used it was to sharpen my eyebrow pencil, so I knew the handle would be in my makeup case in the bathroom. I don't know how or why (I guess I felt sweaty), but the next thing I knew, I was taking a shower..."

Has someone been spying on me?

Aside from the eyebrow pencil thing, because I don't use an eyebrow pencil, this would be a typical day in the life of me trying to get organized. Generally the day ends with a bunch of piles of stuff everywhere that all has to go everywhere else and no one has taken a bath and dinner was whatever anyone could find on the shelves in the fridge that they could reach (poor Camryn, she can only reach the bread shelf. Good thing there's a lot of healthy stuff in the garage fridge). This makes for a very grumpy family and beyond that, a very chaotic next morning. So now I sit and ponder how I'm going to get myself out of this mess I've created for myself. I am examining the list of books that I've chosen to read all at the same time and have come to the conclusion that they are all basically covered in just one of the books: The Bible by God. In that book I can learn the proper care and feeding of my husband, how to raise my girls, and how to meet the needs of all three of my children while satisfying all of my other commitments. The problem is, how to apply it practically. I am in a Bible Study on Monday evenings that is wonderful and I've been going to this or another bible study like it for almost four years now. So you would think that I would be pretty well versed in understanding the Bible and how to apply it practically in my life. Not so. Now don't get me wrong, it's not because the Bible is confusing or communicates in bible speak or church speak and not English, but because I am human. My own sin nature gets in the way of even this simplest of ideas. (Now chill out, I'm not saying that reading Sidetracked Home Executives is a sin, just that it needs to be a tool in the toolbox) That the Bible is the authority on all of these things is not lost on me, but I am too easily susceptible to the urge to try something else first. To listen to the world. To seek council horizontally rather than vertically. I am the champion of going to the phone before the throne. I am constantly reminded, however that I need to kneel at the throne FIRST. The Bible tells us that "fear of the Lord is the beginning of Knowledge, but FOOLS despise wisdom and discipline." Proverbs 1:7 Now I don't know about you, but I do NOT want to be a fool! I want to be smart and wise and beautiful and good at everything. And I am thinking that in order to get a handle on keeping all these balls in the air I should be seeking wisdom. The Bible tells us that "if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him" James 1:5. I love this verse, and there are two parts that are my favorite about this verse. The first part is the word GENEROUSLY. If my daughter comes to me and says "can I have 8 dollars to get into the football game, I want to respond GENEROUSLY and say "here, sweetie pie, take twenty because you'll need a snack and a soda while you're there." Same with asking God for Wisdom. We say "God, I could really use some wisdom here." and he responds, "Here, sweetie pie. Take all the wisdom you need. And when you're done with that I have more." My other favorite part is "without finding fault". Now this is so like God. In my example of me and my daughter, I left out the part where I say "is your homework done? Are you still grounded from last week? Is your room clean?" and a hundred other questions to make sure she DESERVES to go to the football game. But God, He knows we are human and will NEVER measure up. So he just doesn't even go there. Instead he says "All you have to do is ask because I love you and am perfect enough for you."

That said, I believe the key to getting my life in order is to go to God every day, every hour, every minute and say, "Here I am, Lord! What should we do now?"

"So then do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

"To this end, like an earnest wrestler, I exert all my strength in reliance upon the power of Him who is mightily at work within me." Colossians 1:29

"If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen." 1 Peter 4:11

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:25-27

"So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" Matthew 6:31-33