The Value Of Cheerfulness

I just set the timer on my phone for five minutes.
Five minutes of writing about this day.
A mild and partially sunny, middle of March, Friday afternoon...

The phone just rang and now I have 1:55 minutes left to my writing time.

  And my house is strangely quiet as my three oldest are at a friends house this afternoon, and the baby is napping. She will be three in September. There isn't a lot of time left to call her a baby.
I almost turned down my dear friends offer to take my kids this afternoon. But something inside me stopped me and instead of I said a quick " sure, that would be great! "
Why do I do that? Why am I so quick to think I will burden my friend by allowing her the pleasure of the company of three of my children for the afternoon? Especially when I felt downright giddy over the chance to watch two of hers for a couple of hours this morning. Why am I so quick to steal the joy of someone who wants to bless me in this way?

I have spent the last two hours of quiet, tidying up my house that had been previously tousled by children who need no permission to let their imagination have free reign at any given moment.

I was asking my self, broom in hand, why do I so often save the things that bring me the most joy , that fill my heart up for after all my work is done?

  So right then and there I dropped my broom and ran to the kitchen for an ice cream bar and resolved that yes I am going to go ahead buy that monthly subscription to audible. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by treasuring and savoring the stillness of this last quiet hour with the same amount of delight that my little Lucy had when she ran in from the front yard earlier this morning, with her precious dirt smudged smile to present me with the first little handful of purple violets. Which, after buttercups are some of the very first treasures of early spring to be had.

Time feels like a tv remote that is stuck on the fast forward button.
I don't have time to do a lot of things I want to do. But when I think of what God is calling me to, that at this point would be disobeying him not to write. I cannot afford to ignore or excuse my " lack of time " and not write at this point. I can't afford to not make the time at this point. And as a dear friend and mentor of mine pointed out, look at the gift Jesus gave you today, he provided the space and time for you to write.

 And so I'll write. And I'll run and I will tackle that mountain of laundry, and make those lunches and beds and grocery lists and I will run those errands and pick-ups and drop-offs and I will read that story, and more than once to my little girls.

 Only let my mothering and doing and being and loving, all be done as an act of worship.
" Let all that you do be done in love. " 1 Cor. 16:4 Praise brings a shift in perspective, as my eyes lift off myself onto our dear Jesus, I find a clarity and purpose that comes into focus as I uncover joy, bursting from every nook and cranny of my day, from the mundane chores, the middle of the night "cuddles" with my little ones, to returning that long list of phone calls and texts, to saying no to Instagram and looking my husband in the eyes. Adoration produces an overflow. And that means at this point I cannot afford to put off writing for another day.