Wasting Time

Good Morning!  In the business of each day, it is sometimes hard to stop and relax with all the things that must be done.  Agendas sometime get in the way of life and the more important things get put on the wayside for less essential items that seem at the time, to hold us sway to their demands.  So how do we stop and start over? 

The forest among the bluffs.

A couple of days ago Will and I were gathering wood from the forest for heating our home this winter.  I had cut down several dead trees a couple of days earlier, and now we were gathering them in a wheelbarrow.  The work was very strenuous to say the least and I knew that rain was on the way by midweek.  I felt pressured by the weather to get our harvest of wood into storage before it got wet.  I realized that if it retained moisture from the rain, it would be much more difficult to start in the fireplace later on.  Several times my 8 year old son would tell me that I needed to take a rest as he watched me cart another load of wood to the location for splitting.  I told him that I would stop in a little while.  After waiting patiently for some time, he looked up at me from sitting on a stump of wood and said, “Daddy, please take a rest, I don’t want you to have a heart attack!”  It then struck me that the pace I was going at was insane.  I stopped and looked intently at my son, took a deep breath, and then sat down next to Will.  I hugged him and said that I would slow down. 

The blue haze of the morning light.

When sitting next to Will trying to gather my breath, I found myself looking up at the sky.  I realized how precious my time was with my son and family, and that I was wasting it by driving myself so hard.  It sounds rather crazy to be writing this as I look down and see the words going into type, but what is said here is true.  I was wasting my time in my business of gathering all the wood in such a frantic state.  What happened next changed my day completely.  Will and I started to have fun in the chores that we were tackling.  We rolled wood down the hill and watched it bounce and turn, it was such fun seeing each log choose its own path to the bottom of the hill. Tree bark began flying off the logs while tumbling down the hill at a frantic pace.  We watched collisions of timber that started other logs to pile up against each other while some chose to roll off by themselves.  We laughed so hard that we had to sit down in the grass and take deep breathes.   Later, when relaxed, we gathered the rolled wood and moved it to the splitting pile, all the while reminiscing over the fun we just had. 

Will and Abby in the forest.

Later, as I sat and contemplated my time with Will when gathering the wood, I realized how much fun we had, and at the same time I realized we got a lot done.  Was my time wasted?  No, I was learning how to have fun in my work, something that Will already knew how to do.

Take time today to have fun in the chores that face you.  God does choose to teach us through our children, that is, if we take a moment to kneel down and listen.