Being Available (A follow up to "Kingdoms Made of Sand")

Good vs. Better and Good vs. Best

Choices
Choices
Choices
Choices

Faced with so many wonderful, fun, career-growth, etc., choices in life, how do I reach for the best, when this potentially good thing is being dropped in my lap?  Having spent 35 years of my life on the career path, I have been making the same choices out of pure habit for years.  Saying NO to a stepping stone toward the next tier is still unthinkable!    How do I decline a great opportunity handed to me on a silver platter, no less?  

I thought, well, I'll take time to pray about it.  Pray about what?  Aren't the answers all around me?  It's like saying, I'm going to eat a bowl of Cheetos and pray that they'll turn into carrots on the way down.  Well, that's just lack of self-discipline--not making right choices because I want immediate gratification for my fleshly lusts without consequence.   I wanted to take time to pray to lust after it a little longer and hold it and keep turning it over and taking it in, until I couldn't part with it and HAD to have it.

However, the answers truly were all around me.  What has God been speaking to me for five years, even 10 and 30 years, preparing me for the job I'm already doing?  I'm watching small fast-moving legs walking back and forth from room to room collecting objects and listening to high-pitched voices, as they ceasingly work to build their imaginative world out of odds and ends and toy objects.  This is the job I'm doing--being available.

I counseled with my musical/homeschooling/teaching/singing soul sister who said that when her kids were young, she turned down countless opportunities simply to be available.  

Being. 
Available.



To eat wooden food cut with a little wooden knife by tiny hands, to point out middle C, to listen to a new reader who wants to keep reading Psalm after Psalm after Psalm, because it's fun to read out of his new Bible.  To wipe eye-crusties, to watch a toy lion balance unnaturally on two legs, and play Uno Moo for the 40th time today.  To look into my husband's eyes and soak in the smoky blue and write to you and take a phone call from a friend.  To research curricula and encourage friends "thinking" of homeschooling.  To....etc., etc., etc.  Endless list.
  



I did indeed decline, Happily/Sadly, this wonderful opportunity in order that I may be available.  I prayed, hoping the answers around me would change, but God just pointed me again to the feast around me of His mercies and grace in my own messy home and all that He's given my hand to do during this season.  I can indeed fit more in.  I can indeed do the potential new career job one day a week with my eyes half closed, but I need to be available.

Thank You, Lord for showing me, again, the obvious and the great joy that is mine right now, without needing more.  

It was a Kingdom Made Of Sand
But You've Blown it all Away
I Can't Believe That I Can Say
That I'm Glad.






Comments

  1. The NollsFebruary 8, 2011 at 3:15 PM

    beautiful, Christi! I am loving these posts!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 8, 2011 at 5:43 PM

    Oh Dear Friend! You have chosen what is better and it will not be taken from you - Luke 10:42. The Lord is indeed at work in your heart for I have seen it first hand! Thank God that He has given you the joy and peace to serve where you are and where you are most needed. Love You Much! Jill

    ReplyDelete
  3. DarlaFebruary 8, 2011 at 5:57 PM

    I will never, ever, for one minute (did I mention never)regret being available to my kids, by giving up my beloved career in the Fire Dept. I have often told people, "I didn't really choose to give it up".I just did, cause it was so the obvious thing to do.God stirs our hearts(thank you very much)and usually makes it clear the right thing to do. We, in our flesh, just don't always want to see it. I KNOW.....you will never (did I mention never) regret being available.
    SO glad for your family that they have an "available" mommy and wife.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Soli Deo GloriaFebruary 8, 2011 at 6:16 PM

    I love you all so much! Ch.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Darci MonetFebruary 8, 2011 at 11:26 PM

    Chrisness, I love you so much. And I am enjoying reading many of your posts. But I have to say something in regard to this one, because I'm not understanding.

    I have to ask when do you take care of YOU? Why do you view a one-day-a-week opportunity to do something that excites you as a temptation or "lust of the flesh"? I don't think it's sinful to want something for yourself (within reason of course!). God didn't give you specific gifts and design you as a unique individual for no reason. What if He, knowing you are feeling restless and perhaps struggling a bit with where you thought you'd be at this time in your life (believe me, I get THAT!), handed you this opportunity as a way to keep you stable and grounded FOR your family? Many may disagree, but I think the best thing that you can do for your children is take good care of their mother. I'm not saying run out and get a 60 hour a week job or anything, but one day a week? That still leaves PLENTY of time to be "available" while giving your children a chance to experience some independence AND feed your own soul in the process. You come back to your family refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to take on even more messes! Win-win-win.

    Obviously my observations are based on not knowing the entire story, so understand that I mean no disrespect to you or ANY full time domestic engineer. And we all know there are way too many parents out there that DON'T sacrifice nearly enough for the sake of their children OR spouses. But I know that you are not one of those people, so this post confuses me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousFebruary 9, 2011 at 5:28 PM

    Hello Friend. We shall continue to knit one another... to something that is greater than what these temporal eyes see.

    "Faith=you make wise decisions that keep you inside of God's boundaries and then rest in knowing he will guide you where he wants you to go." ~ Paul Tripp via Twitter [AND I'm not trying to tempt you to join. (; ]

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Salvation

Image
I finally got a full night's sleep!  The baby didn't wake, nobody needed nightmare comfort, and I actually felt like exercising!  (A first in over a year....)  I was elated and ready to tackle the day.  I was even excited to be outside for the first time in a year and announced to the brood that we would be going outside after mommy finished putting the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and wiped off the sinks. Then - "CRASH!" I couldn't stop it.....the container of dipping oil Rob had concocted the night before for our dinner with friends tonight went hurling onto the ceramic tile in an explosion of glass and oil and herbs....."Nooooooo!" I heard myself gasp.  And there it was - a huge mess I had no idea how to tackle.  After banishing the children to the school room in their bare feet, and denouncing our outside excursion, I sat down on the couch to drink my coffee and figure out how to clean up gloppy glass.  Wallowing in my self pity, my husban...
Read more

Liturgies, Heritage and Meditation

Image
"When there are thoughts, it is distraction;  when there are no thoughts, it is meditation."  Ramana Maharshi The beach is my meditation.  I sit.  I listen.  I watch.  I feel the sun.  I feel the wind.  I feel the sand. I hear the waves. I hear the laughter. I watch the horizon. I watch the children. I can't seem to think one thought.  I try. Any thought would be distraction. And no thought even comes to distract. If I read, it is frivolity. No thinking required. Pure superficiality. The beach is my meditation.   When I lived on the California coast, I jogged at the beach, I walked on beach; kept my chair and towel in my car to sit and read for a hour or two to unwind from my day.  Drove to the beach in the predawn light to meditate on God's word and fellowship with Him. Many parties were held at the beach. Many glasses of wine savored watching the sunset over the ocean. ...
Read more

All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Acting Class

Image
"There's nowhere else to be but here.  There's nothing else to do but this." These were the first words out of our amazing acting coach, David Ralphe, at the beginning of every class.   You would feel your shoulders relax and your mind’s eye come into focus at the front of the class.   There he would be, probing each of us with his intuitive eye, patiently and compassionately waiting until we were all “there” in the room with him before he commenced. Present.   David was calling us to be present in the moment.   Leave behind all the shoulds, the to-do list, the many obligations and expectations gnawing at us before we walked into class.   Let go of all the activities, events, conversations and circumstances of our day that pooled in our frontal lobe and limbs and joints, and come into this moment.   Don’t miss it!   Be fully available with your senses tuned in to hear, see and comprehend this moment, right now.   Often times we’re ahead o...
Read more