"Confessions Of A Tuesday"

Do you ever have a day of the week that you wish you could skip? You know the kind of day I am talking about. You have more to do than you can possibly get done and yet it still must be done. Tuesdays are my skip day. However, if I skipped Tuesdays I would miss the joy of watching my favorite soccer players having the time of their lives. Have you ever noticed that the things in life that produce the most joy and satisfaction are usually those things that are under the greatest attack? Let me explain. I know that Tuesdays are busy. I could use a good nights rest on Monday night to prepare. Last night I did not get much sleep. My oldest coughed all night and needed multiple breathing treatments. As I awoke to face my Tuesday I packed 3 lunches, 3 snacks and ushered 3 boys out the door. I then made sure 3 soccer uniforms were washed and dried and by noon I was cooking supper. Yes, I said supper. I picked Joshua up at 2:30 and found a very sick 5th grader who could not stay for chorus. When Caleb arrived home from chorus at 4:00 I had dinner packed in the cooler, water bottles ready and boys dressed for soccer. We had 15 minutes to get to the soccer field for pictures. As I pulled the cooler, chairs, blankets and a bag of soccer balls onto the field my attitude was less than appropriate. I watched 2 games and 3 1/2 hours later I loaded the car knowing that we had 20 minutes to return home, shower and make it to bed on time. I thoroughly enjoyed watching my children play soccer and score goals, but I was robbed of complete joy by having a bad attitude. I grumbled and I complained all night. Well, maybe not out loud, but in my heart I was complaining. I "might" have threatened out loud to "make everybody quit soccer." That conversation is kind of blurry, but the point is I have allowed the busyness, the hectic schedule and the inconvenience of Tuesdays to steal a very real and exciting joy that comes from the game of soccer in our lives. The Hawkins family is a soccer family and we love it. You know what else we are...We are a Jesus loving family too. We love Jesus, but we often allow the hectic, busy life we live to come before Him. Oh, we say it is all because of Him, so that we can have an impact on His kingdom, but is it really? Are we using all of "this" for His glory? God has called our family to a place of reevaluating why we do what we do? Are we keeping up with the Joneses or are we obeying His calling on our lives? Are we willing to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable to obey Him or do we shy away from those things that might stretch us? Sometimes it is those very things we shy away from that produce the most joy, growth and results in our lives. I pray that we will all be willing to be inconvenienced. I want to embrace the hectic, the new and the challenging, IF that is what it takes to know my Savior more, be conformed into His image and make a difference for His kingdom. I confess that Tuesdays stretch me. I can't ignore or run away from Tuesdays. I can't pretend they don't exist. I must face them each week. There are other things God calls me to that I cannot run from, things that stretch me and call me to a place of surrendering my agenda and teach me to die to self. It is my prayer that we will all learn to embrace the "new" that He calls us to even if it means being stretched. It is in those places of obedience that we find His joy.