Middle of Lent Reflections

WOW does the Schenk family ever have a lot going on this month. Brent has two weekends of class left and will be graduating soon. We start FPU tomorrow night and we are looking forward to leading the class for the first time. Kindergarten round up is this month which is just mind boggling. Next year we will have two kids in school full time and Eleanor will start preschool. We have lots of exciting things happening this month at church for the kids. We even will get to see extended family for Easter this year which is wonderful.

We also are starting another round of eye patching with Oliver. Poor Oliver has 5 more weeks of all day eye patches before we can start full time vision therapy. Our surgeon thinks that by doing intense patching we can get his left eye stronger faster. Oliver is very frustrated but with a little motivation (ie bribes) I am hoping we can get him to stick with us through this rough spot. We don't normally offer bribes but honestly how else do you convince a 5 year old to be a pirate for 5 weeks? You give him some booty. Oliver picked out all of his rewards. He picked out new infinity characters, a bouncy ball, a night out to the movies (Captain America of course), bubbles, and new markers. Well rounded choices I must say, hopefully these will convince him patching is worth it.

April is definitely looking to be a busy month compared to March. And March wasn't exactly a cake walk either.

Over 3 weeks ago I decided to blog through Lent. I can't say that it hasn't been without challenge. There were a few days were I didn't write at all while we were on vacation. And there were even more days where I wasn't sure how I felt about writing. But most of the time writing has given me clarity where my busy life cannot.

Looking ahead at this next month I can actually say that blogging and writing is giving me strength. I can't promise to write Nobel peace prize winning articles here. I can't promise that my writing will be perfect. But I can promise to write exactly what I feel, exactly what is on my heart, and that I will do my best to keep writing. I will write because this challenge is doing something. When I write, words spill out. But often my words help me search for what really is on my mind. Truth comes out. It isn't exactly life changing, but it is good. The truth is always good.

I'm over half way through this writing challenge. April will bring me a new set of challenges. But I'm still as ever committed to this writing challenge too.

Birthday Reflections

Last weekend I celebrated my 27th birthday.  Birthdays I think are a great time to reflect back on our past. I like to think about all the different blessings and challenges I have had as well as what opportunities and obstacles I might face in the future. This birthday was no different.

I did have a lot of blessings in the last year. We traveled literally around the world to China, I had some amazing service opportunities in our church, and we moved to a new town and made several new friends that I hope to have for life. I had our challenges too. Our middle child had surgery and I am continually exhausted from the stress of raising kids in a home where one parent is both working full time and in school. Grad students everywhere I know you can relate. Life balance is hard to achieve right now. I am not always my best self.  There are days where I am just in parenting survival mode because those perfectly laid plans I made are just not going to happen. I have to let it go.

Letting go I think is always the hardest battle. You are admitting that some things are out of your control. Maybe you even realize that everything is out of your control. Suddenly things look really uncertain.

So much of life is unknown. To overcome that, we make big plans to make ourselves feel like we can control life. We fill up our calendar and schedules with important to-do items. However, sometimes we plan so much that we micromanage every minute of our time. I definitely do this. My plans become elaborate and I fill in any "free" time to make myself more productive.

One of the things I really learned this year was in one of my parenting survival mode moments.  Here I was trying to get my kids to bend their wills to my plans for the day. Let me tell you: getting a headstrong seven year old, a distracted five year old, and a defiant two year old to cooperate is no cakewalk. We are talking about a battle of epic proportions. Here I stood trying not to lose it because MY kids were not sticking to the itinerary, to MY plans!

I realized that this is no way to live life. My kids don't need to be in a ton of sports that have us constantly on the go.  We don't need to say yes to every opportunity that we encounter. Our calendar shouldn’t be so complicated that it practically needs an interpreter as if it is in some foreign language. Soccer, dance, swimming, commitments – these things by themselves are not bad things.  It is when we over schedule and are busy all the time that this is bad.  When we live like this our calendar dictates our lives. It controls us. It defines our lives instead of the other way around. 

I will be the first to admit we are so guilty of this. I need to make sure we as a family change our priorities so time, calendars, and to-do lists don’t define our lives. I need to put God first, family second, everyone else next.
 
I don’t want us to be so busy that God becomes something random.  I don’t often get things right with God. I will definitely admit I don’t always put God first. But I think I’m learning that maybe a little less is more for our family right now.  I’m less distracted from prayer, from church, from my relationship with God when I center my life in this way. Freeing up my schedule actually frees me. I think that is definitely something I can keep on my to-do list.