• Busy Schedule

  Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 11, 2002 (message contributor)

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  Tags:  Giving Yourself, Finding Fulfillment, Workplace Balance

BUSY SCHEDULE

Kim Larence, age 42, is a wife and a mother of three boys. She heads the math department at the private John Cooper School in The Woodlands, Texas. Here is her typical daily schedule. I wonder if it sounds anything like yours.

5:00 a.m. Wake Up

5:15 - 6:50 a.m. Wakes her three boys, prepares breakfast, does housework while catching the news and weather. At 6:20, her husband Jerry leaves for work, dropping David age 12 off at Basketball practice.

6:50 a.m. Drives Jonathan, age 15 to school, then backtracks to her own work. Jackson, age 6, comes along for the ride. He then goes to school where his mother works.

7:35 a.m. Walks Jackson to his classroom.

7:45 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Work. --- Teaching, Tutoring, Overseeing Study Halls, grading papers and going to meetings. She grabs a quick diet drink for lunch.

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. Does housework and prepares dinner. At 6:00 she sometimes stops making dinner to drive Jackson to soccer or Jonathan to his youth group at church.

7:30 p.m. Dinner

7:50 - 10:00 p.m. Helps the boys with homework. Quizzes them on vocabulary words, edits research papers, helps them do internet research.

10:00 - 11:00 p.m. Housework and grading papers.

11:00 p.m. Bed

Six short hours later... the process begins again. Sound familiar? Some of you are saying, "Hey, that sounds easy compared to my schedule!"

Is your daily schedule a little bit overwhelming... and do you find yourself at least from time to time tempted to brag about it?

Are the tires on your SUV bald?

Do your children seem disoriented when not on the way somewhere? When you call your kids for dinner, do they instinctively jump into the minivan?

Does life seem like an insane frenzy of activity? Hockey, Soccer, Basketball, Homework, Tennis, Piano, Ballet, Work. Little time remains for pointless Play, and certainly there is no time for Rest and Reflection.

Studies show that in the last 20 years, there has been a decline of 12 hours per week in the average child’s free time.

SOURCE: www.familylife1st.org. Citation: Newsweek Jan. 29, 2001 p. 50.