Time Slipping Away

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back.
~Harvey MacKay

Monday was a particularly difficult day for me. My daughter said something to me, I cannot even remember what, and I watched my own tears ironically fall into the sourdough I was kneading. I was thinking of all the things I felt were so important in my life, in my home, in my lifestyle have now taken a backseat to the needs of my church. Just planning some time to make bread is challenging. I am wondering how long this need, this season of my life, will be.

While I have enjoyed being a new church board member and leading the praise and worship (P&W), I will also have the responsibility of setting up the new church website (again, but let's not go there). I have offered to step down from my board position for missions as I truly do not think I can give it the attention and devotion it needs and deserves, and another former member returned to our church who did it well three years ago. In one way I do not want to give up being on the church board, but in another I feel that couples should not be serving on the board at the same time also. Plus the website and preparing P&W take so much time that I am concerned about how well I will be able to homeschool with the schedule we have, which is not working out as well as I hoped.

Another concern is now I am beginning to feel very burdened by the responsibility of leading in P&W and I am still wondering if all things the board voted to do is going to make any difference. What I mean is, if the District Superintendent (DS) means to close us down, we can do nothing to stop that. If he wants us to merge with the other church, I do not know he can force the two to do that as it does not state so in the manual, but he is the DS. I think the whole thing with the P&W is more pressing on me since we do not have a pastor. With visiting pastors giving the message, the P&W not only needed to be a bit different than it was before, but also to provide cohesion and grounding. I began to realize how much responsibility it is and I began to feel overwhelmed by it. I do not preach, but music is a very powerful influence, a message of itself, when it flows well and it seems the Lord has blessed the P&W.

With listening to music, searching videos, and looking at skits, poems, and other things to share several evenings each week, I just have not been preparing well for our homeschooling lessons. On top of that, I will be having to devote more time to work on the website as well. Once the website is set up, it may take less of my time...but still more than before as it was not a part of my schedule at all previously. Time seems to slip away from me each day.

I have thought about giving up the horse barn on Tuesday mornings and allowing my daughter to ride one evening a week if she would like, but I also know the woman who heads up our 4-H club, which is one of the most active of all the 4-H clubs in the state, has so much to do and has a difficult time with her back, hips, knees, and allergies. The horses are very therapeutic for my daughter and me even when we do not ride, but the barn is about 25 minutes away and we try to arrive around 8:30 AM. Just feeding, cleaning water troughs, taking hay to the upper field, and cleaning the barn takes an hour or more, so 9:30AM. If we want to ride, we have to give the horses an hour to digest their grains, which we spend cleaning the arena and surrounding paddock...10:30 AM. If we also groom and ride or train we could easily be there all day, but we usually leave around 12:30 PM and then we go to the nearest Kroger to refill gallon jugs of purified water and look for bargains. We get gas and sometimes go to the bank which is all in the same area. We get home around 2:00 PM and eat a late lunch. After showers, my daughter practices piano and works on her horse curriculum or 4-H project, which makes it a long, physically tiring day.

I do not want to give it up but with most of her formal lessons on just three days a week, it is difficult to get everything done before 5:00 PM without dropping something from the schedule and she is not reading as much as I would like...actually, I should rephrase that, she is not reading as much of the things as I would prefer for her to read. Even though she can do more lessons independently, she still needs lots of guidance and I still need to actually teach her some things.

In the meantime, my gardens need attention and I would like to plant the cool weather plants before it gets too late. I have books stacked high on my nightstand that I promised to review and I am slipping on my regular morning cleaning routines. My blog...I would like to post a bit more regularly and I have some giveaways to do. I did do something extra as I prepared for the consignment sales the last couple of weeks and I have three sales at which I hope to shop this week, then I pick up my leftovers on Saturday and I am done with that until spring.

I was doing a morning devotional time just for me and also with the Princess at breakfast, but somehow breakfast has slipped in time to be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes later than I planned. I need something...but I am not sure what. My Lord knows what I need. Perhaps He will tell me or just provide it.

~ My Lord, I know that You never place on us more than we can take, but I also know that we often take on more than You plan for us to handle. So, my Lord, I am asking that I only do what I should be. If I am doing the tasks You have set before me, please give me peace that You are still guiding my daughter's education according to Your will. ~