Is it really almost November?

I really can't believe how time flies. I know that it is sort of cliche and people always talk about it (much like the weather), but I really can't believe it's the end of October. I don't know why I've been thinking so much about time lately. Maybe because I feel like I don't have much of it.

God has really been speaking to me lately about making time. I do spend time with him, but I often don't make enough time for others. It's hard to balance things that have to be done with things that we would like to do. I have always desired balance. I want to balance work with home life, I want to balance quiet time with spending time with others. But I realized (thanks in part to Jean Stockdale.....a little shout out) that balance should not be my goal. My lifes breath should be about God and what is pleasing to him. The funny part is, I know this. Intellectually I know that my life should be pleasing to him. My heart desires for my life to be pleasing to him. But my view has been so skewed. I have been working to be pleasing to him. I have been trying to find balance because I think that is what a "good Christian woman, wife, friend" should do. And I thought that if I could just find balance, then I would be on my way to living a good Christian life.

I was wanting balance to make my life easier. It had little to do with God and a lot to do with me.

And I tell you, that this new idea has really just blown me away. It's ok to not have balance....what? Who ever knew?

It's ok that I don't have any clean towels because I spent 2 hours writing a friend a letter during some free time. It's ok that my floors are dirty because I have spent extra time visiting with friends.

And here's the big kicker.....I don't feel one bit of anxiety or guilt over those things. I don't feel like I have let my husband down because when he came home there wasn't a clean towel in the house. I don't. Before, I would have thought that I was just a terrible wife for allowing all the towels to get dirty. I was putting too much emphasis on my abilities. I was being so prideful. My priorities were way off and I didn't even know it. I thought I was being pleasing to the Lord, when in fact I was more worried about pleasing myself by checking things off my to do list.

I know the mundane tasks of life still have to be done. I really do need to wash my towels. They are a little bit out of control (but to my defense our washer is broken). But how much have I missed because my focus has not been on the eternal? My eyes have not been fixed solely on Jesus. And I didn't even realize it!

I confessed to a friend the other day that "I just don't have it together". And I don't. Outwardly. But God has been doing a mighty work inside. He is teaching me to see things from an eternal perspective. He is teaching me to see the things that I need to do and to see the things that I don't. He is teaching me to think through things from a completely different perspective and most of all, I am learning how to seek him in every area of my life.

It really is almost November, and time is flying. I don't want to miss another minute by being bogged down with things I deem important. I want to be guided, in all things, by the One who gave me this life and is the very source of life.