Creating a Device Free Zone

Got a Crate? 

Have you ever gone wireless?  I mean like, no phone, no internet, no distractions or interruptions?  If you've lost your focus somehow or maybe you don't even realize you've lost your focus, you will gain some good perspective simply from putting your phones and internet away....just try it for a day.  Maybe you could try it for two, or three?  Let me know how it goes and what you learn.....

Trade in for Something better...

Here's what I learned and jotted down the other day....

 

Six of my seven children have come down with the chicken pox, my husband left for a 4 day men’s retreat, my eldest son tilled up the phone line yesterday, and a bird had the nerve to poop on my shoulder.  The good news is that I don’t live in Alaska anymore and I am so glad the ground isn’t frozen. 

Because…. I had to dig a 16 inch deep ditch for the new phone line.  Rain clouds were hovering threateningly.  I could see them coming and I never know when it’ll start or stop pouring here in Oregon.  The phone man won’t connect the wire back up until he sees a ditch and since I can’t dig one fast enough for him to wait; he’ll come back on Monday to inspect the job. 

At first the digging was fun….until I hit the cement like clay at 10 inches…I know because I measured.  You know, 16 inches doesn’t sound like much until you actually start digging.  I had a remarkably clear mind as I’ve been without phone and internet now for almost 24 hours….I had a lot of time to ponder a multitude of things in my life because I wasn’t on facebook looking and reading about everyone else life happenings. 

To make a long story short, I want to set clear and well defined boundaries around the activities, projects, and friends who enter in my life.  They are all good except they crowd out the best…my family.  I have thoroughly enjoyed these past few days caring for my sick children, and as a side note…one of them had received the chicken pox vaccination but still got a full blown case.  Sorry to have to burst all the  bubbles surrounding vaccinations. 

BUT don’t get me on that soap box….you know I was thinking that I’d like to make a real soap box so I could use it for a homemade soap mold, one of those activities that pop up in my mind that I’ve been wanting to do now….oh only for 7 years now.  See, it’s a case of “highly distracted mom syndrome.”  I’m pretty sure I could reverse this by focusing on the few important tasks that God has put in my life. 

#1 Love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and mind.

#2 Love my neighbor as myself…that would be my husband and children.

I don’t see much room for else.  I might have to leave the internet in the dust, everything good that God has brought into my life has never arrived via the Internet.  He doesn’t really have a use for it, although the Bible says to redeem the time so I suppose its redeeming value is that you can connect with people quickly.  Except somehow in my mind it all gets jumbled up unlike when I see people face to face, I remember what they say and I connect with them as a real person.

So, what was I talking about anyway?  (Another case in point of “highly distracted mom syndrome.”)

OK, it was about the sheer joy I’ve experienced these past two days just being Mom.  Easing the discomfort of my children, talking to them, looking into their eyes and caring about what they have to say.  Putting wet wash clothes on their foreheads, preparing healthy food for them, cleaning my home, working in the yard, reading books and snuggling on the couch, helping to bathe, brush teeth, and put soothing oil on their skin. 

As I worked alongside my one healthy child, who is really an adult now, at 18 years old, digging dirt and shoveling pea gravel together, watching him maneuver a tractor with a scooper blade I was so proud of him.  He interviewed for his first job yesterday.  He wasn’t hired on the spot, like I thought he’d be.  (So I’m a little biased… I am his Mother after all.) But when he came home and I asked him how’d it went, he responded with his characteristic charming smile and proceeded to tell me that it would be better for him to just start his own business since he learned he’d have to buy all his own tools anyway but that he would know next month when they began hiring.  That’s my boy! 

Wasn’t it just yesterday he was pushing his TONKA truck?  As I watched him drive off for a few days with his friends, I had nothing but pride and confidence that I am right where I need to be.  I am available and I am walking with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listening to my daughter’s share the lessons they are learning from their walk with God and asking me my opinon is so rich and rewarding.  The relationships God has given me are such a blessing.  I watched them in the past few days serve others even though they were not feeling well themselves.  They don’t complain, they don’t make excuses; they pitch in where needed and work with vigor and good attitudes.  They even had time to make healthy brownies.

My kids are truly amazing and I don’t have to take the credit for it.  Oh, yes, I surely would like to amass to myself some praise but all my failures would surely outweigh it all as every good parent will eventually and hopefully someday confess.

Speaking of confess, I don’t have to push, pull, or pry my children into following Christ.  They follow Him because He’s set them free.  They follow Him because He’s a gentle leader.  They follow Him because He’s real to them.  They follow Him because He’s good and cares about them.  They are engaged in relationship with the King of the Universe!  What more success could I possibly want or long for, but that “my children walk with Thee.”  I get it!

The world will mock and scoff my chosen career pathway.  I fight against it at times in my life but I always come up empty handed. When I let go of my self-centered hopes and dreams and embrace God’s best I am filled with such peace, joy and contentment.  Suddenly my eyes are open to the work He’s doing, the work others are doing or want to do around me, and then all the half-baked work I get done, suddenly takes on meaning and value.  It’s my job….I manage, my work is always partially done.  Perhaps that is why yesterday I willfully finished the “Gingey Travels the Alcan” story.  No, it wasn’t perfect but it was good enough for my family and children and probably a handful of friends and relatives.

I want to re evaluate and track every activity I choose to be a part of…what is most healthy for me as a wife, Mother, Daughter, and Friend?  What relationships, activities, books, service, or meetings encourage personal growth in areas of my spirituality, my physical well being including nutrition and fitness, my marriage, my finances, my work and project ideas, my writing, etc?

I’m looking forward to two whole more days, almost 3 of no phone and internet.  I’ve been praying for guidance and wisdom to know what to do with the “Ole’ Schoolhouse and Gym” and whatever it is, it will be a device free zone that I know.