"Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands" Prov. 14:1

The mother's of our church all received a booklet for mother's day entitled "A Safe Haven. Construction Materials for the Christian Home" by Francie Taylor and just the introduction made me stop and think by simply asking me two simple questions:

1. Would you consider yourself to be a wise "homebuilder"?

2. Have you ever considered making a concentrated effort to slow down life in your home?

BAM. What a slap in the face. I'm not sure if I am a "wise homebuilder" and "what? slow down....who has time to slow down"?????? WHEN do I have time to slow down.

Then I realized I did make a point to SLOW DOWN about a month ago.

I do have the time...I was just filling it up with something else!

I used to be SO obsessed with keeping my house spotless. Every night it was the same routine: get off work, go pick up Camden in Lindale, drive home to Chandler, start preparing dinner, start more laundry/finish laundry, vacuum the floors, mop the floors, eat dinner, bath Camden, feed Camden, put Camden to bed, sweep and mop again (dinner somehow always found it's way to the floor) finish up the remaining laundry, shower and then it was bed time.

REPEAT.

Then I realized...where in the world in all of that time did I spend time with my family? That's when it hit me. THIS is OUR time together. I was so stuck in "this needs to be done, the floors need to be mopped, the kitchen counter is dirty, the laundry isn't finished" that I didn't stop to look at the BIG picture. My little boy is literally growing up in front of my eyes and I'm wasting my time doing mundane tasks that don't mean anything the next day because I simply just start all over as if it had never been done. I didn't sit down and relax with my husband because I was always too busy doing everything else that the only time I slowed down was when it was bed time and we were sleeping. Life is about those precious moments spent with the ones you love the most and I was missing out and I hated that.

So guess what. I still have a clean house....but I don't mop and vacuum EVERY SINGLE DAY. We still have clean laundry but I don't do it everyday, the kitchen is clean but I don't always put up my dishes right away, sometimes I let Camden stay up a little later than usual (if he's having a good day) just so we can spend those extra moments with him.

That time is now well spent on filling our house with laughter as we play on the floor with Camden, dozing off on the couch and watching "our shows" with my precious husband, and my new found favorite, sitting on the floor folding laundry with Camden simply to watch him unfold it right behind me...I can't help but laugh at him because he just giggles and thinks he's the funniest thing ever.

This tiny little book has definitely caught my attention and I am so thankful for the sweet little gift from our church. Question #2 = continuous work in progress. I still haven't quite answered the first question yet, but i'll be working on that with the help of this "gift" from God :)