"STAYING ON TASK"

I have had the privilege of being a “stay at home” mom for the last several years, which in some people’s opinion is the easiest thing in the world. Let me tell you; it is not. There have been many times when I have truly wished I could work “outside” the home again. It’s much easier! You usually have one particular job to focus on and really one area of expertise to deal with. My job was entitled “certification analyst.” I determined if workers were actually in “real time” work, if they were furloughed, on leave of absence, etc., to certify if they were entitled to pay. That’s all I did all day long; well with the exception of having to answer the phones sometimes when we would get swamped with calls, but mostly it was the same thing every day, all day. Staying at home is much the same with the exception there are many tasks to be carried out in a day at home. Oh, I did those same tasks when I worked outside the home, but I guess because I was gone all day long, I had somewhat of a schedule to keep as far as housework, laundry and other things were concerned. Being home during the day all day gives you more freedom to do whatever, whenever, which in theory sounds good, but it is not!! I have found since being home I truly believe I have a slight (hahahaha) case of ADD or maybe even ADHD!!! I find myself starting a task in one room, finding something that goes in another room, taking it to that particular room, seeing something that needs to be done in that room, starting on that, seeing something that goes in another room, taking it there noticing while I’m in that room that something needs to be done there, starting on that project, finding yet another thing that belongs to a different room………………are you getting the picture? It seems I’m easily distracted these days and can never “finish” what I started. It’s a vicious cycle that is occurring in my life and it feels as if I’m going in circles like a dog chasing its tail!!!! Nothing ever truly gets accomplished which is becoming more and more apparent!!!

That’s how our lives can become as Christians if we’re not very careful. We have “good intentions” of doing what we’re supposed to do for Christ, but there are so many things that go on in our every day lives that many times cause us to get distracted. We find ourselves telling God that we’ll have our “quiet time” at such and such a time and we even manage to get our Bible out, set our coffee down, sit down in the chair………and then the phone rings!!! Well, goodness me, every woman knows you can’t just let the phone right. You HAVE to answer it!!! It might be Sally or Mary with the newest gossip and we wouldn’t want to miss that!!! *Ugh*……gossip!!! That’s a whole other discussion!!!! So…………..we answer the phone, get into a 45 minute discussion and by the time we get off the phone maybe one of the children are up milling around and then of course, you can’t have “quiet time” at that point, so you close the Bible, all the while telling God, “I’ll do it later when the baby goes down for a nap.” And then, there are some encouragement cards that you need to send out so you go to do that and all of a sudden are reminded that you didn’t lay anything out for dinner so you make your way to the kitchen to find whatever it is you are going to fix and in the meantime, something else steals your attention and the cards never get made out.

Some days it’s just hard to stay on task. We as women in general have so much to do and our minds never shut off, unlike men, we are constantly in “go” mode! We don’t have time to step back and look at what we are about to do, we just do it. It’s almost as if we are on “auto pilot” and don’t even realize it most of the time. However, I have found that even though I’m blessed to stay at home now, I still have to have a “to do” list and stick to it. If I don’t, nothing gets accomplished. First things first though. Our tasks have to be prioritized and when God does not take first place on that priority list we fail and we only make our life harder. I know in my own life that when God gets my full attention at the very beginning of every day, it makes my day much more tolerable than if He gets shoved off to the side for every other things I have to do. Somehow, somewhere we have to find a happy medium. We must be intentional about putting God first on our “to do” list otherwise something else will grab our attention and we’ll be whisked away into our day. Does that make the day “perfect?” Certainly not, but it sure does throw a “monkey wrench” into the plans that the ol’ devil had for you that day and it surely aggravates him!!! That’s my goal!!! Aggravate satan as much as he tries to aggravate me and ruin my life!! I want my days to go smooth and I want God to be in complete control of them even when I don’t feel in control of me or what I’m doing. As long as he guides my day, the right things get accomplished and all is well.

“Grace be with all of you.”
Hebrew 13:25