Goodbye For Now Hurry. I Won't Miss You.

Hi friends.

It's been a bit, eh? I offered myself a little grace as summer approached as I found myself with three very busy children back at home full-time. We spent our summer at the parks trying to get there as early as possible before the slides scorched their poor little tushies, mooched off of our friend's pool (you are the best, Karissa! We love you!), and getting our weekly "Donut Thursday" fix, where the manager at Sure-to-Rise has come to know us as regulars. I showed up on a Tuesday once and he looked at me confused, "What are you guys doing here? It's not Thursday yet!" It was a busy summer, but one of our very best. It's interesting as you begin to enter new seasons of life with kids. Each with their own unique highs and lows. I used to think life was busy when they were babies. It felt like I was always running to & from, but that was nothing. We are finishing up a season of hurry and busy that has kind of wrecked me in a way. Three sports. That's it. But they were the stealers of our time and joy.

Here is what I have come to learn about myself through this last season: I despise busy & hurry. I knew this about myself before, but I never felt it quite so deeply as I have this last season. I literally even hate the terms & have tried to be aware to minimize their role in my vocabulary because that is simply not the life I want our family to live. 

"How have you been?"
"Good - but busy!"

"Hurry up and eat guys! We have practice in 30 minutes."

"Hurry up and get out the door. We have to get to school!"

"Our weekend was sooo busy."

"I have such a busy day ahead!"

What good comes from this? How does this build our relationships, our home, and our family team? I'll tell you what I've learned - it really doesn't. I can't remember a single time where I have felt peace and joy while being busy or in a hurry. And that is because they are incompatible. Maybe it's just me (please say it's not just me!) but when I am busy and hurried, I am the absolute worst version of myself. This is when I am most impatient, unloving, and unkind. 

"Corrie ten Boom once said that if the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. There's truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect - they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul." 

- The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

As we entered into one of our busiest seasons yet, I felt out of control and ill-equipped to live it out well. Having one kid in a sport is one thing, but three separate activities - no thank you. I sought guidance from people that have been there before and seemed to have it mastered, but still found myself floundering to embrace it all. So, as we marched into this fall with a different commitment each night, I dove deep into teaching the kids about the idea of margin. And to be honest with you, this was incredible practice for me, too. I will just preface this by saying, our first few weeks of school were rough. There was sooo much rushing. There was sooo much hurry! And there are still days now that are hard. It has taken us time to get into the rhythm of giving ourselves margin to eliminate hurry, but now, when I say, "I need your guys' help in giving us margin so we're not impatient and stressed getting out of the house." they understand what I mean, and they help. I even had Sawyer ask me the other day, "Do we have enough margin still, mom?" Mornings, which used to be one of the most stressful times in my life, have become almost peaceful. We are not rushing. We are not hurrying. I get to send my babies off in a calm state of mind, knowing that their heads and hearts are in a good place, too.

I want to applaud those of you that have come to be absolute rockstars at managing the busyness of sports seasons. I witnessed families that completely thrived (or appeared to on the surface at least 😉) as they went to and from each game and practice. They truly seemed to love every second of it. Ty and I have learned through this that we are simply not those people at this stage of life. Rushing out of the door each night to get kids where they needed to be was not fun for us. I slowly watched the climate of our home shift as we lived in this constant state of busyness. The blessing of children, however, is their pure innocence. Little did they know how packed our schedule was and had no concept of time. They just loved getting to hang out with their friends and play a fun game. And truly, we loved getting to watch them play, too. 

During this time, I also began to read Taking Back the Family by Jefferson Bethke. If you are at all interested in prioritizing the family and what it looks like to live as a family team, I cannot recommend this book enough. It's wonderful. But it was through this idea that I began to create a filter in my mind. I started to think through the lens of: Does this bring life, joy, and peace to our family team or is it pulling us further apart as individuals? And I believe this is a question we can ask for each commitment in our lives - children or adults. But, this is also where things get tricky because the world tells us one thing: that we are individuals and we should do whatever makes us happy and fulfilled. The way of the world tells us that what we do individually doesn't affect the family as a unit, but as I trudged through this last season, I would highly disagree with this. I watched each practice and game slowly pull us apart. I watched my husband lose his patience and slowly be sucked in a worldly view of success: how well your child performs in a game. I watched us rush kids out of the house on a Saturday morning, only to be separated for much of the day. I do not believe that families need to spend every second of their day together, but an environment where we are constantly moving in different directions doesn't sound healthy or good to me either.

I love the way Jeff puts it in Taking Back the Family saying, "God doesn't give individual missions to teams. Now, let me clear: I don't mean the family does everything together, never leaves each other's sides, or has to always function as a unit. That's oversimplified. Too much of a caricature. In any team, the members have different assignments. But all of it is under the umbrella of the collective mission." He goes on to say, "...when the toxin of individualism seeps into your bloodstream, you begin to make choices that are best for you but not best for the team. And while we celebrate that in families for some reason, you know what we call that in team sports? A cancer."

So, here is my takeaway... if what we have committed our time, energy, and attention to does not allow us to love God and love people more, if it is not moving our family toward our collective mission, if it does not help create a cohesive team, then it is probably not the best move for our family. I never want my kids to measure their success in life based on how well they played in a game or how many points they scored. I never want them to see that we put greater value on their ability to perform in a game over their character. I don't want them to believe that this constant state of hurry and busyness that so often pulls apart the family team, despite being normal by worldly standards, is not healthy for developing strong generations to come. So today, as I sit down and feel welcomed back into this beautiful blog that allows me to process life, I thank God for giving me strength to persevere... and also for a season where we can rest, rejuvenate, and refill with His goodness.