About a year ago I had to make some changes in my life. I had another surgery, this time on my leg, which forced me to slow down. Not having the capability to be mobile was very difficult and scary for me. The recovery time was slow and a challenge. I had been living with the pain for years and felt that the surgery was a step in the direction of improved mobility and health.
During this time, I had some reconstruction ideas about my life. I had been doing so many things for so long. Pouring out energy and running myself ragged. I have a passion and love for serving and was involved at my kids' school, at church, in a recovery group, not to mention trying to run an eight person family, helping house people in transition on my property and rescued a brother/sister set of dogs. Yeah, all in my free time.
I was gone three nights a week from home, attending a support group meeting and a step study. Friday nights I was regularly going out with friends after a meeting. Two Thursdays a month I attended a women's Bible study. I was doing a lot of individual activities but at the expense of my family.
Now, we haven't even addressed the activities of my kids! Tuesdays and Wednesdays my two oldest kids have youth group. Wednesdays I ran a youth volunteer day after school. Every other Friday my oldest daughter goes to visit her other mom. My oldest son was in baseball three out of four seasons of the year, which also included games and practices. My oldest daughter was previously involved in cheer for a few years.
My youngest three have social/emotional special needs and the youngest has a life threatening illness which requires a regiment of medication and treatments.
All of this makes for a very full life.
On top of this, I own my own business and have for the last ten years. I celebrated three years doing ministry work with my church. On average, I was working what I conservatively guesstimate between 40-50 hrs a week between the two. Who am I kidding? I am probably undercutting this by 20 hours.......
So, in my downtime as I am recovering from leg surgery, I had time to look over things. How I was spending my time and my life. I was burning up as much energy for two people, maybe more. I came to the sobering reality that I was sacrificing my children in the hustle and bustle of it all. It broke my heart. It still makes that lump in my throat form and my heart ache.
You see, a parent's actions will always affect their child. I realized how much what I was doing was affecting my children. My youngest attended daycare five days a week, from morning until they closed. Often the long days left him exhausted by Thursday. (His condition leaves him to tire quicker than others but after I reduced his time I noticed his stamina improved.) Homework didn't always get done and when it did, it was rushed and the quality time wasn't there. We did ready to eat meals from the grocery store or quick prep meals high in sodium, calories and preservatives. I wasn't as involved with my children as I wanted to be. It made me so sad.
I needed to make changes but didn't know where to start.
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