The household is in an uproar, we are all so very busy with our individual things.  I am currently being pulled in many directions and it seems to me that I am doing a little bit of everything poorly. I do not know how I am going to pull off my weekly post.

What I would like you to do Lord, is take over and quickly type out the post.  I’ll read and reflect on it when I find the time.  I just don’t have it in me right now to sit down for a few hours and struggle through this one. I want it all with no effort.  Like it’s a drive thru window, where I place my order, pay with a few praises and receive my blessings and move on to the next thing.  I am starving for insight to many of the things that have happened throughout the week.  Yet I do not want to take the time to wait at a long line to dine at a five-star restaurant kind of lesson.

This is what it means to sacrifice.  To choose to stop and quiet the mind, to fill up with nourishment that only the Lord can give.  I sit here exhausted and instead of sleeping I will try to fill that emptiness I have felt all week.  I will listen to my music and take my pen and I will wait for the greatest teacher.  I am anticipating and imagining that He will guide the words that will come out of my pen.  And they flow like water, cascading down upon the page.  Like much needed rain soaking a parched heart and fulfilling a hunger with the most glorious tasting nourishment.  Is it worth the cost of time?  I think so.

The week started with me leaving my sleeping family as I attended early church service.  The sermon was about Amos and God using a plumb line to measure his people.  The pastor went on to about how we are to use Jesus as a plumb line – not being perfect but as he was right standing with God.  The sacrifices he made to be with the Lord.  And living within the limits of obedience.  He sacrificed it all in the name of love.

It was the same Sunday afternoon, when I checked on the progress of the fall project my husband has started.  I have wanted raised garden beds built into the slight hill in our backyard.  He is breaking his back trying to get the huge railroad ties in place.  He has one of the three beds completed.  When I look at it, it seems higher on one end.  He pulls out his level and the bubble is in the center.  He places a ball on the railroad tie to show me that it does not roll.  I look at it every way I can possibly look, I even lay on the ground and one end still appears higher.  He claims it is an optical illusion.  He then says that if he had a plumb line, he would be able to prove to me it was perfectly level and then I would be convinced.

My husband has painstakingly laid the foundation for the garden beds.  He has measured and leveled until everything was squared.  He trusts in the devices that he uses and does not rely on his naked eye.  He sacrifices his time to produce something solid and level.  He sacrifices out of the love for me.  I on the other hand, rush through my day trying to please many people with little pieces of me.  Trying to be of importance to everyone and pleasing no one.  I am producing superficial relationships, where he is giving me his all.

This last week I have begun my annual volunteering for the local theater company’s young star performance.  I love working back stage with these kids and watching them grow in their creative gift.  They spend months working on the play.  Countless hours perfecting their craft and it shows.  I love being surrounded by their talent.  They sacrifice so much to be able to be on that stage, to hear the much-deserved applause and to see them shine in a job well done.  They inspire me to be better at my craft.

It is also the busiest time for marching band, with games and competitions.  I watch the band director jump through hoops to get his band to where it needs to be.  I watch my boys slowly become men under his direction.  I complain about how we have to struggle to make it all work.  My boys in all their wisdom say to me that it is all worth it.  Their pride is evident.  The pride comes from the sacrifice.  I am inspired by their dedication.

My lesson is now coming together from the few hours I have spent on this piece.  Sacrificing in the name of love changes the person who is sacrificing.  One thinks that to sacrifice is a painful thing.  The one who sacrifices suffers when in fact the opposite is true.    I can appear to be important by my busy schedule.  I can justify my lack of sacrifice because of my lack of time, and then complain because I do not have “quality” in my relationships with those I love.  I know people who have spent their whole life with their priorities messed up and who are alone and bitter.  They can’t figure out why it turned out that way.

Is this the plumb line God will gauge me with?  My willingness to give all I have and create something of value, whether it be written piece or a relationship with the ones I love. I am not to give them a small piece of myself every once in a while.  It might seem like I am doing all I can, but if I were to look at myself closely, I might find that I am fooling myself.  That all these little things I do, will not add up to much.  I am filling myself with the empty calories of superficial busyness.  God wants to align me with what is important.  I need only be obedient and seek His guidance.