Critical

I am in a critical time of life.  Because I'm in the process of forming patterns that will determine the rest of my life.  My marriage.  My kids.  My relationship with God.  Dear friends, who have young children, I'm realizing that it's now!  Not when your kids go to school, not when they're all potty trained, not when they're sleeping through the night!  

Let me tell you what I mean.

Today a crazy rain storm blew through at about 10 a.m.  It's a Saturday and Nate and I had discussed in detail what we wanted to accomplish today.  The storm kept us inside and all 4 of us hunkered down in Nya's room to read and play.  I realized 3 minutes in that Nate was with the kids and I could go work on those all-important tasks we had talked about. (I do that often... if Nate's keeping the kids happy, I can go be productive, right?)  I stopped myself from leaving this morning and we played as a family for over an hour.  It went against everything I wanted ("needed") to be doing.  It was amazing.  It was fun.  For me, my kids, my husband.  It showed them they were more important than laundry and cleaning.

Critical.

Nate and I got frustrated at each other yesterday.  We have a lot of unfinished projects and I wanted him to take time to do them! He left for work.  Then came back.  I had a chance to apologize.  Projects?  Really Katy?  A clean garage and perches in a chicken coop are more important than my best friend?  More important than encouraging and uplifting my husband?

Critical.

I usually know the right answer.  But I'm more and more convicted that knowing the right answer doesn't mean you're following God.  Remember the scribes, who knew every punctuation mark in the Bible?  Jesus said they were wrong.  I'm also convinced that doing the right thing doesn't mean you're following God either.  Remember all those rich people in Mark 12?  Giving lots of money to the temple?   Jesus didn't care.  He cared about the poor widow who gave everything.  Everything.

Critical.

Not later.  Now.  I've got to set standards, patterns, characteristics now that will define the rest of my life.  We all know women - think our mothers' age - who nag (nay, control) their husbands, are obsessed with the cleanliness of their houses over playing with their grand kids, who know everything 'biblical', but their lives are far from Jesus' desires for them.  They chose things along the way that determined their lives now.  Patterns were set years ago.  These years.  These homemaking, child rearing years.

Critical.

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord to Thee.