How do I get through the morning routine?

Day 4 – Challenge Update

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We’re halfway through our 7 day challenge – Spend more time with God each day than we spend looking at the news. My source for information about world events comes primarily from Facebook, so I’ve been trying to limit my time using the app.

I’ve done ok this week; I’ve been able to reduce the amount of time I’ve spent on Facebook each day since I started the challenge this past Monday so that I’ve spent more time in quiet prayer with God and studying the Bible. However, I have seen that, although I’ve reduced my time on Facebook, there are other apps on my phone that still get a lot of my time and attention. So there’s still that to work on.

Day 4 (Thursday), I spent about 45 minutes in quiet time in the morning. Throughout the day, my phone logged me spending about 14 minutes on Facebook.

What about you? How are you doing in our challenge?

***To help you get an idea of what a quiet time could be like, I asked a variety of people to share what they do to spend time with God. Here’s what Casie Luther had to say –

Before the pandemic hit, I would pray before work and would do my bible study/quiet time after work and before bed for about 30 minutes. Since I started working from home in March I have been doing my quiet time in the mornings after my husband leaves for work and before I clock in for work. I spend about 30-45 minutes in my prayer and bible study time. I have been on my knees in prayer more than I ever have in the last 4 months. I am trying to be intentional about what I spend my time doing and what I focus on. I am trying to be intentional on spending more time listen to God and being in the word.

I’m 26 years old, married, no children yet. 2 dogs 😊

Right now I’m working from home but in normal circumstances I work in an office Monday through Friday from 7:30-4.

Help Me Get My Perspective Straight

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We had a terrible morning.  Not our worst ever but the worst this school year.

They wouldn’t go upstairs after breakfast to get ready for school.  Then they wouldn’t come downstairs when it was time to go.

I raised my voice.

Alright…I yelled.  I’m not proud, but I  asked multiple times for them to come down, and they did not, so I yelled.

I hate sending them to school after a bad morning.  I rehash my mistakes all day.  And I told them that I felt that way.

But, we’ve been through this time and again – fussing at the to get ready for school each morning.  Sometimes it’s better, but then it cycles back.

So, the whole way home from dropping them off, I asked God what to do about it.  How to make our mornings go better.

When I got home, I quickly peeked at Facebook (so NOT what I should have been doing at that point.  I know.  But my mind needed to escape for a moment).

As soon as I opened the app, I saw a post requesting prayer for a young girl who’d been asked not to wear a cross necklace for her school pictures that day.  She chose to take a stand, so the prayer request was for strength and protection for her.

I thought, ‘How crazy.  Can a school actually ask someone not to wear a necklace with a cross on it?’

Whoever heard of such a thing?

Truthfully, I do not know the whole story.  Surely there are extenuating circumstances.

But I stood in my kitchen thinking about it and began to worry about the world where my children are grown up.

That familiar quiver crept into my chin and bottom lip.  That burn flared in my throat.  Hot tears welled in my eyes.

Here I was, wasting energy and precious time worrying over how I was going to get my kids through the morning routine when there were issues of their souls to consider.

Teaching them to trust God is more important.

Leading them to a life in Christ is more pressing.

Preparing them for persecution from a world that does not know the Savior should be my focus.

I’m concentrating on trivial things.  Things of this world.  I’m allowing Satan to distract me with details while my children’s eternal souls are at stake.

Whoa!  Hold on!  This is getting a little too “out there,” right?  I’m taking it too far.  We’re just talking about two kids who won’t get ready for school in the morning.  (Two kids who are in fifth and first grade, by the way, so we’ve been doing this morning routine thing for long, long time).  No need to bring their souls and their salvation into it, right?

I mean, they have to learn to get ready for school.  A mom’s job is to prepare her kids to live independently – part of that is learning to get ready for the day…so they do need to learn this lesson.

But what’s more important?  What deserves more of my focus?  How do I learn to balance the practical, real life, day-to-day lessons they need to get through life with the eternal lessons that matter for their souls?

I think that’s the real question: how do I balance everything?

How do I keep everything in perspective?

Seriously.  This isn’t a rhetorical question…

Parents who’ve been there and done that –  How do I do this?  How do I balance the everyday and the eternal?