Slowing Down

I have been a woman of many hats in the last year.

I have balanced more roles than I care to list. I've taken on more projects than I can count. Ignored my own mind telling me no. Generally pushed myself beyond any imaginable limits.

I thought I had it all under control with God backing me.

Except that with so many roles to balance... well, there hasn't been any balance. Things have started slipping. Some of those "hats" have slipped to block my vision of my goal in this life. Others have been time consuming. Some have gotten lost in the balancing act.

That last group hits my heart.

What have I lost? I've lost my focus. My time in the bible. My excited, adventurous school time with the kids. My patience. Myself.

I started adding all these things to who I am. To who God created me to be. All because I felt I needed to since I was a single mother.

Here I am a year later. In some ways better off and in others much worse off. Feeling completely empty and drained.

I need to refocus.

I need to slow down.

At least as slow as things can get with 6 kids and a small farm!

I'm reconstructing my company to focus on the homestead. I'm taking a step back from more time consuming projects in favor of more time with my kids.

Mostly, I'm getting back into my bible. I'm ashamed to say that last Wednesday I put my bible in my church bag for service and it didn't leave the bag until I sat down in the pew this week. For an entire week, I did not read my bible!



I'm also taking a slower approach to reading the bible. I'm no longer trying to get through the bible in a year. I'm always so focused on if I'm caught up or behind, that I'm not getting much from it. Instead, I am setting the goal of 20 minuets in the bible alone in the morning, afternoon bible time with the kids reading from the illustrated children's bible and asking questions, doing versus and then taking an hour to hour and a half to myself after the kids are in bed to study the bible.

If I make it through a large amount of reading in a day, great!
If I make it through a small section that I can't stop reading and taking notes on and the Lord is really opening my heart to, EVEN BETTER!
All that matters is that I'm refocusing on what matters. The Lord.