I've spent the last few years of my life letting my 8 year old daughter pour herself into organized sports. From tumbling to tball, softball to basketball and then all over again. Now don't get me wrong I believe these outlets are unbelievable teachers of life for children so I'm strictly using this as an example but what happens when I as a parent began to eat, drink, live and breathe these sports becoming so consumed in her love of an activity that I forget my first true love. God. It's a hard pill to swallow when I woke up and realized one day this has become me. My busyness and life had become so lost in one thing I wasn't sure quite when it happened that I began to lose little pieces of myself. I rarely took time to experience life anymore. I forgot what It felt like to feel accomplished working under the buzz of a sewing machine or what it smelled like spending an entire day baking interesting new creations, or what it sounded like to hear my children's laughter during a popcorn and sugar filled family movie night. I had been living life but not truly experiencing it. I realized this had created the so called domino effect. I had become not such a great friend wife or mother for that fact.
How so? I bet your asking. You are giving your child everything she wants and pushing her towards greatness right? Well maybe....but maybe not. I read something today that said recognize the difference in happiness and joy. I don't think joy is something we can chase, no matter how much we strive to get more of this world joy doesn't come then. I think joy comes when we stop chasing the fulfillment of this world. We can enjoy this world but we can't find our joy there. No matter how hard we search we will always come up empty and unfulfilled. I want to teach my children more than chasing happiness of this life. I want them to learn that you can not chase joy down. Whether we think we will find that in a new career, home, money or our children. Instead we must first seek his kingdom and let everything else just take its course. That we don't become consumed In our own lives we forget the whole purpose of our life.
You see many people would tell me that I'm doing it right. That my heart is right by wanting to give my children things maybe I believed I never had and I'm okay with doing that to a point. But when I look at the adults my kids will become in just a few short years away I hope I can say I directed their paths toward Jesus first always because I don't want to be sitting in a pew years down the road wondering what in the world I did so wrong. That I didn't lose myself in them so much during the years of their youth that I missed the whole point in directing them to Him.
