Today is one of those days where I'm having a hard time coming up with something specific.  It's not that I am ungrateful today, I'm just...tired.  And when I'm tired I have a hard time being aware and alert to life around me. Earlier today I organized our calendar for the month of September.  I think it might have been the final nail in the coffin of tired.  We are B.U.S.Y. in September!  Wow.  But I look at it all and I can see where there are opportunities for relationship building, community building, life lessons in perseverance, furthering developing gifts the redheads have, etc and so while I am exhausted looking at it I am grateful for what is to come in the month of September.  I am grateful that we have a life outside our four walls and that life is full of moments and memories with people.  Maybe I'm putting too much stock in the filled days to come this month but maybe I'm also willing to have the eyes of my heart and mind wide open s...

Be sure that being busy equals being productive.  Time wisely used is immeasurable.   Ian S. Ardern Just because *you* are busy doesn't mean you are being productive.  There is a big difference between busy and productivity.  Too many people equate the two and that simply isn't true.  I know many people who are busy but so unproductive.  And usually occupying yourself with "busy work" usually means you are doing things half-assed.  (Yeah, not apologizing for that.)  When we use busy work as a cover for looking productive we don't do things with excellence, we don't put all that we can into it, we don't actually accomplish anything that is useful.  Be smart about your work.  Is your "busy work" done with excellence and does it end up furthering productivity or is it done half-assed (still not apologizing) and as a cover so you don't have to really apply yourself?  Be wise with your use of time.  If you aren't going to be produ...

A well-known pastor, he was was once asked what was his most profound regret in life? “Being in a hurry.” That is what he said. “Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.” “But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.…Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.”   Mark Buchanan Being in a hurry puts us in the mindset of busy.  And we glorify busy, for that matter we also glorify being in a hurry.  Why do we do that?  Why do we teach, most of the time unknowingly, that being in a hurry and therefore busy is good?  Preferred even?  Because if we slowed down long enough to quiet ourselves and our busy minds we would see with the eyes of our hearts that being in a hurry and busy is not preferred.  It causes us to miss some of the m...