Since the kids started their football and cheer practice at the end of the summer right before school started our family has been busy day in and day out, it feels like we are constantly on the go and always running to get somewhere. In the peak or our busy and chaos there are moments when I can feel completely overwhelmed with the feeling that I will never have enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done, EVER. Between working full time, church activities, kids sports, household responsibilities, exercising, there will never be enough time in a day, and I will never get everything done, but that is ok.

Instead of waiting for things to slow down…which realistically with 5 children in our home (we pray to be blessed one day with a 6th:) it is not likely to happen for the next 15+ years, I have come to terms to accept this as my season of busy. This is the time in my life I am going to be on the go, full of activities surrounding the kids and our family. Instead of getting overwhelmed and frustrated with the busy, constantly waiting for the season to change or slow down, I need to enjoy all the blessings God has packed into this season of busy. I need to remind myself that I am not here by accident; God built me and equipped me to handle my season of busy. How AWESOME that He entrusted me and my husband with raising these 5 amazing children. Then when I have reached my season of slow, our little ones are grown and on their own I can look back on the season of busy and know that I was able to enjoy and cherish the many blessings of busy to the fullest.

So many blessings keeping us busy,
-loving marriage honoring God
– 5 amazing children
– 2 working parents, we are blessed with security in our careers
– Amazing church home and family
-kids that are motivated to be active, social and play sports
-beautiful home to take care of
-pets to love and cherish
In every area of our life we are blessed, THANK YOU LORD for all you have given us!

Isaiah 41:10
‘Don’t be afraid for I am with you, don’t be discouraged for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will hold you up with my victorious right hand’

As I embrace being blessed with this season of busy in our lives I am tasked to keep God at the center of our lives. Keep Him front and center in all we do is essential and key to being successful, successful in obedience to Him and successful in what we set out to do. Being busy day in and day out is for pointless and insignificant unless we keep our eyes, hearts and focus on our Amazing and Awesome Lord. God is good all the time and all the time God is good. He is intimately involved and cares about every detail of our lives, every detail of our lives should involve Him.

For this past month I know we could have done better, we are not perfect there will always be room for improvement but overall I am very pleased with some of the progress we have made as a family to work on keeping God our focus. Here are some of the highlights where I can really feel our focus has remained on God.

—–>Scripture to go; during the week the older kids ride in the car with me to school which is a good 25 minute car ride, after we drop the youngest our 3 year old off at preschool and each of the older children take turns reading scripture. We started at the beginning in Genesis; they are required to read a minimum of 3 verses each, some days they choose to do more some days they read their minimum. This has been a great start to the day, not each day has been perfect but they are starting each school day reading and listening to scripture. HOW AWESOME! They are pretty excited about the idea of reading the bible cover to cover eventually if we keep this up. At the end of the week if they have done well all week we get a treat on the way to school, breakfast sandwiches and a drink at Wawa. They think this is great 🙂

—–>Wednesday evenings before going to church for Teamkid and youth group, we have made it a point to set aside an hour to sit down and have dinner together and hold a family meeting and devotion time. In order to make this work we do frozen pizzas and salad, which require little prep and clean up allowing us more time in the middle of our crazy busy week. Kids love routine and do so well when they know what to expect every Wednesday. They are each allowed time to talk about anything they want to, any concerns or praises. The family devotion each week varies. Wednesdays are not always a complete success, we have 5 kids sometimes their silly behavior gets carried away but overall this has been awesome and effective for all of us.

—–>Sundays after church we go home and make lunch. Over lunch we have discussion and questions about the sermon. We ask the kids different things to see what they picked up in the sermon and discuss the message and review the commandments and verses.
—–>My incredible husband Matt and I have made it an effort to add onto our devotions together, we had been getting up early and starting each day with scripture and prayer, we are not always successful in this as some mornings we are so tired and hit snooze one too many times but we don’t’ beat ourselves up over a missed morning or two. We have added on scripture in the evenings while kids are getting ready for bed, we make it a point to sit at the kitchen table and read scripture together so they can see up doing this and making this a priority, we are trying to set an example for them.

Psalm 16:8
‘I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.’

Psalm 18:30
‘As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”

Proverbs 16:3
‘Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.’

“Heavenly Father,
Thank you so much for Your many blessings. We are so undeserving and yet you still show us unconditional love, mercy and grace. Thank You for answer prayers. Thank You for the honor and blessing of being a parent. Please guide us and strengthen us, give us wisdom to triumph through this season of busy. I pray to keep our focus and hearts on You Lord, that You will always be center of our home. I pray that we can be an example of You to our children and those around us. Our children are a gift from You, daily we need Your strength and wisdom to train them in the way they should go. Give us patience and a joyful heart. Forgive us when we are too busy to listen to Your voice, help us to take a breath and experience Your presence and so we can hear what You have to say.
In Jesus name I pray~ Amen”
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