By Judy Gerry
Let’s face it — we moms are BUSY!
The year of 1982 was a bustling one in the Gerry household. When the parents of five youngsters mention that they are busy, little explanation is necessary. If you have little ones, you know that just keeping up with the physical, emotional, and basic needs of the family is not only very demanding, it seems all consuming. When our children were young, I felt that I could never check off everything on my daily to ‘do’ list. There was no time to rest. Things seemed to be perpetually falling through the cracks.
Dave and I were beginning to notice that in addition to the routine demands of our family, bit by bit, we had added many other irons to the fire. Not only was Dave holding down a stressful job in Denver, over the previous years we had become very involved with church activities, community involvement, and helping at the local school. While these were great activities, we knew that something felt out of whack. It was becoming apparent to us that we needed to reevaluate our commitments and restructure our lives.
As we prayed about it, we saw that we were beginning to substitute the ‘good’ things in life for the ‘best;’ even substituting the ‘religious’ things for the truly ‘spiritual.’ We both became convinced that we needed to carve out more time truly nurturing our relationship with Christ Himself.
In the months that followed, we began to phase out of a few things. Not everything, but some. Together we made a concerted effort to focus on just looking at God Himself ... studying His attributes and His very essence ... talking with Him. That’s when we began to renew our excitement about actually knowing the King of the Universe!
During that time in our lives we committed ourselves to placing more emphasis on being people of God who had a passionate love-relationship with the Lord, rather than on doing things that were good things. That’s when I wrote the following poem.
ON DOING VERSUS BEING
Slow down, clock, slow down; I have so much to do.
The years are skittering by so fast and I’m barely halfway through
With all I should’ve completed by now, the projects all undone.
If you don’t slow down I’ll have to go faster — run, Run, RUN!
Slow down, clock, slow down; each morning when I awake
I’m already behind from yesterday. There must be some mistake.
Maybe if I organize more, if I could finish all I’ve begun …
Can’t you see I’m getting dizzy? — run, Run, RUN!
Slow down, clock, slow down; I feel like I’m on my last leg,
But if I had an extra minute I could juggle one more egg.
But the clock will never slow down, and there’ll always be eggs in the air,
And even if I drop a few, will anyone really care?
Slow down, Judy, slow down; you have so much to be.
The years are skittering by so fast and I’m barely halfway ‘me.’
I’m meant to become like Jesus as I’m in His Word and pray.
The clock can keep on running, but I’m stopping with Him today.
As parents, we are always going to have schedules filled to the brim, and demands knocking at the door. But let’s make it our goal to spend time with our Father so that we can become the mothers and fathers that He designed us to be.