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So it's time to start a family. You've prayed, tried, and cried, untill you finally got that positive test result. 9 months of waiting and one tough event later you have your little bundle of joy. Then something strange starts happening. Little by little you start resenting the little guy (or gal). You have lost your freedom and you want it back. It starts with baby sitters or maybe even day care. Then school is a blessed 8 hour reprieve. Soon there's sports, band, or a host of other extra activities. There's soccer practice on monday and thursdays, piano on tuesday, church on wednesday and sunday, and they want to spend time with their friends on friday and saturday. So when exactly do you spend time with your kids? In the car? I started to go this route too. Honsetly their are some people who don't have a choice when it comes to day care and things like that. Work and life prevent it. But I'm raising the question of what did you ave your children for? Was it so that daycare and baby sitters can raise them? If you find yourself being offended by this take a minute and calculate how many waking huors you have each week. Then try to figure out how many of those you spend with your children. Can you fulfill the commandment found here in Malachi, doing that? I've been considering it and have come up with a few solutions. I read a chapter out of Proverbs everyday with the kids and then read the same chapter with my wife. I'm guaranteed to spend at least some time with everyone and we have oppurtunity for dialog about what's in that chapter each day. You can do the same thing with other books of the Bible or even other books as well. The idea is to make sure that your family is important enough that they get some of your schedule, and for their sake turn off your cell phone, pager, or whatever you have, let them really have you. We have also been marking off Monday nights as family game night. we have a big collection of board games and we pick a few of them to play. Then we pop popcorn and get down on the floor and we we ignore all non-emegency phone calls. We play with our boys and have a good time at it. On our blog I list where we find our board games and give suggestions on other famliy sharing ideas. |
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