Making time...

I'm so busy being busy that I've become very impressed with myself.
I think it's time to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n just a bit.
There's a great deal going on around this place, and I have legitimately been very preoccupied, but I've managed to forget two of my main reasons for keeping this blog: to journal as a spiritual discipline, and to let folks get to know me a bit. So I apologize, mostly to myself, but also to anyone who reads this. I will try to do better. Honest, I will!
The thing is, in being so busy about "my" work that takes up so much of "my" time, I think I've lost touch a bit with the One for whom I work and who gifts me with time.
So here's some of what's going on in my head and life right now:
It's Valentine's Day, and I've always had mixed emotions about this particular holiday. When I was a teenager, life just about ended if we were dating someone on Valentine's Day. If there were no flowers, cards, or candy, our sense of self-worth just plummeted. And of course, I could have an endless opportunity here to rant about commercialism and the exploitation of what should be a feel-good-for-all kind of day. But today during Chapel Talk with the preschool kids, I remembered the joy of Valentine's when I was a child, when for no real good reason except a calendar date, we all were nice to one another and surprised each other with little gifts. What fun! And that, boys and girls (or so I said to the children) reminds us of the love of God, who loves us all the time. So I'm viewing the hearts-and-flowers-ness of today as an opportunity to remind myself of God's love for me, and to be kinder to others because God loves them too.
I'm feeling very anxious about the new service. I have wonderful folks from the church donating items we can use in our worship design, there's a wonderful pair of ladies making our worship banner, the ads are in the local papers and posters and PSAs went out yesterday, I spent the morning preparing the first week's PowerPoint presentation, I'm not preaching or leading the service until it's a few weeks old (so Eric's in the hot seat there), and if we can get a reasonable number of songs together for the worship team we'll be doing well. They have a name, now: Five:19, after Ephesians 5:19.
I do love what I do, and who I am. But I am planning today to slow things down a bit. I've been too busy to give the time I need to this week's sermon, for example, because I have made the new service my first priority. And I'm going on a date with my husband tonight, if he can get home at a reasonable hour...maybe we can't get out for dinner, but to be sure there's a dessert out there somewhere with our names on it. We both need to be less busy elsewhere and spend a little time together when we don't think about work, bills, chores, or even our furry kids.