I remember in sunday school… way back when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my sunday school teacher brought glass jars, whole walnuts, and rice into the classroom for our lesson. I remember her teaching us how to prioritize our lives (as best as a 2nd or 3rd grader can understand, mind you…) putting important things like spending time with God, doing our homework, and loving our families first. She put a few whole walnuts in the jar, almost so it looked like there wouldn’t be any more room for anything else. I remember feeling anxious about there not being anymore room in the jar for things like playing with friends, soccer games, and art classes… things that I loved, but that my teacher categorized “not as important”. But then, the teacher added grains of rice to the jar… a great many little grains filled in the gaps between the “important things”, and I was amazed to find that all those “little things” I wanted to do found room in the already very crowded jar of life. “Decide what your walnuts should be first,” my teacher said. “Then fill in the rest of your time with all those small things you wish to do and need to be done.”
Well, I just turned another year older last week, and surprisingly enough, this lesson still replays in the back of my mind every so often when life seems a little too crowded for my taste. While I don’t have that jar anymore, I do have that memory to serve as the rudder to redirect my priorities. When I allow “all the small things” to get filled in first, the important things don’t end up fitting in my calendar… important things like spending time with Christopher, spending time reading His word, journaling, and reading that book I’ve been meaning to read for months.
So this lull in blogging… this has been a time of re-adjusting my “priorities rudder”…. a time for figuring out what the important things are and making time for them amidst the many little things that need to get done. I have a stack of AMAZING shoots to share with you in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to share snapshots from my life in the past month…
