If you ever feel like a lousy parent could it be that the problem is totally unrelated to your parenting skills? See if this makes sense.
When I did children’s ministry I often appeared as “Cornball” the clown.
All clowns juggle so I learned to juggle.
I’m still OK at it today but I never got really good at more than three balls.
If you saw me juggle three balls you’d probably say, “He’s pretty good.”
If you saw me juggle four balls you’d probably say, “He’s pretty lousy.”
If you saw me juggle five balls you’d say, “This guy can’t juggle at all.”
I can juggle behind my back, under my leg, off the floor, overhand and underhand but three is my limit. If I go beyond that I am a lousy juggler. We all have limits.
If you feel like a lousy parent is it possible that you are just trying to keep too many balls in the air?
Sometimes, because we don’t want our kids to miss out on anything, we pack our schedules full of every activity imaginable.
Sometimes, because we aren’t willing to lay aside something we enjoy, we still try to do all the things we did BC – before children.
Sometimes we compare ourselves to other parents who seem to easily juggle limitless activities and we feel we have to keep up with them or be a failure.
Could it be that if we would let some things go for now – even good things – that we would find more time for the best things? And that those things we did allow into our schedule would be done with more joy, more excellence and less stress?
The good is always the enemy of the best.
In the chaos of our world we can find ourselves consumed with “’the tyranny of the urgent”.
Urgent things usually shout at us and demand to be done while the truly important things wait quietly for us to get around to them.
The danger is that urgent things easily crowd out the truly important things.
And before we know it the day is gone, the week is gone, the year is gone, our kids are gone and we never got around to those things, the really important things, that we were always going to do just as soon as we had time.
Even the most amazing juggler has his limits.
Beyond that it looks like “this guy can’t juggle at all.”
As parents too, we can only keep so many balls aloft.
We need to make sure that the ones we keep going are the ones that we will be glad we took the time for 20 years, 30 years, 50 years from now.
“LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered–how fleeting my life is. – Psalm 39:4
2 Comments
Yes. And stress comes in when we load up our schedules and that compounds the problem.
“Urgent things usually shout at us and demand to be done while the truly important things wait quietly for us to get around to them.”
– much wisdom there!