See The Schmidts Run

My life is flashing before my eyes.  That's something you're supposed to say when you have a near death experience, right?  I feel like I'm saying that on a daily basis.  Sometimes I feel like Gregg and I are the main characters in a Dick And Jane early reader book...See Gregg run.  See Martha run faster.  See Gregg and Martha run so fast through this life that the next thing they know the boys are grown and living out of state and they'll wonder what happened.  Sound familiar to anyone?

I have been guilty all too often of the mindset, "If I just get through this (insert said event), things will slow down for us."  Then I'll have more time to read my Bible, or sit with the boys, or (dare I say it?) take care of myself.  If. I. Just. Get. Through. This......  It never happens.  Will is almost five now....FIVE.  I look at pictures of him when we first moved back to South Dakota and he looks like a baby to me.  This is scary because in my mind we just moved back here.  In reality, though, that was more than half of his life ago.  Stuff has happened since then.  Life has happened...the good, the bad, and unfortunately, the really ugly.  And it's all happening way too quickly.  Way too quickly.

Over the past few months...well, year or so really...several things have happened that have made me stop and take a good hard look at how we've been living this life.  I took a step back...looked at our lives as an outsider...tried to get a fresh, new perspective on things.

I have been so grateful over these past few months for a praying husband who stays in the Word and desires to lead his family well.  I have also been grateful that I've been able to stay in the Word fairly consistently myself.  This has allowed us to be able to analyze our day to day activities and reevaluate our priorities with a more eternal perspective...a more Godly perspective.  What would Jesus say if He walked into our lives right now...in the mess that it is?  Would He be pleased?  Would He be ashamed to call us His children?  Would there be things I'd try to hide in the closet or sweep under the rug?  These are questions that have surfaced many, many times over the years.  Questions I would think about for a while and then push back to the dark corners of my mind after the answers I came up with were less than flattering...or convicting.

Well, we're not pushing them back any longer.  The reevaluation process has gone on long enough...time is flying by all too quickly and I don't want to wake up one day and come to the realization my life has passed and I don't have any more time to reprioritize.  No more excuses.  No more "Once this, then, God...then I will live how You want me to live."  No more.  More on that to come....  ;)

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise." 

~Ephesians 5:15