This week on our Spring break, I’ve thought about a specific day years ago when my daughter taught me the importance of slowing down. It was a beautiful summer day and I was busy with a task.

“Come outside Mommy,” my elementary-aged daughter said, “I  made something special for you.”

I walked into the backyard and there was a make-shift bungalow attached to our large tree.

“You have to lie down here,” she said motioning to the beach towel placed in front of the tree.

I lay down, looked around, and complimented her on the creative shelter. I started to get up to leave so I could continue my task indoors.

“You can’t leave yet. I’m not done,” she said.

I lay back down and she began to fan me with a broken tree branch. “Isn’t this relaxing, Mommy?”

As I smiled, it hit me how anxious I was to rush off to a task rather than savor these precious moments. I stopped and just took it all in. She had no agenda other than provide me a place where I could rest, relax, and just be.

Away from my mom-duty distractions, I looked up at the tree reaching towards the sky and saw the beauty of God’s creation. Fascinated, I looked closely at the aging bark and was amazed by how the tree formed around the boards secured above. I thought about all the many memories created around this tree, the many children who climbed and swung on it, and the joy and laughter surrounding nature’s jungle gym. I almost missed this.

“My turn,” my daughter said interrupting my lingering thoughts. I got up, thanked her, and gave her a big hug letting her know what a special gift that was to me.  She smiled.

I’ve forgotten the unimportant mom-task I disregarded, but I’ll never forget the scenes and lesson learned that day. I’m glad I didn’t miss it!

Rest is not idleness,

and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day,

listening to the murmur of the water,

or watching the clouds float across the sky,

is by no means a waste of time.  ~J. Lubbock

Last night as we drove to church, a car headed straight towards us in our lane, not stopping, not swerving …  just straight towards us. My husband swerved the car up onto the right shoulder and the oncoming vehicle raced past in the lane our car just drove. As soon as it passed, it went up the embankment behind us, without braking, careened across the road to go up over the curb on the opposite side of the road, and disappeared down into the ditch.

In an instant, all plans changed. My husband bolted down the embankment to help the driver and I grabbed my cell phone to call 9-1-1, and headed down behind him. An hour later, once the ambulance and fire department left, witness statements were given, we all three got back in the car and continued on our way to church.

One never knows what the next moment brings, do we?

Thankfully God spared our vehicle from being part of the impact of the oncoming vehicle and we were safe. But what one of the officers later told us about the dangers of helping people in an accident, startled me. He told of a recent incident where the injured was strung out on meth and lashed out violently at the one there to help. The officer explained when you approach a vehicle, you don’t know if they are armed or what danger waits when you open the door to help.

The thought had never entered my mind. What a different world we live in today.

In showing our daughter how sometimes things we want to do, like youth group, gets put on hold when we see someone in need, we also had to share with her the dangers.

As parents, our job is to teach kids how to live so when they become adults, they are equipped to stand in the world and live the life they are designed to live. Today’s dangers and pitfalls are far greater than when we were young, but it just means our job is that much more important. It’s our job to be there to love, support, encourage, protect, equip, and teach. How are we doing?

I don’t know about you, but I am rather dependent on my computer. It’s ridiculous how much I depend on it to do so many different things. What ever did we do before computers? We hand-wrote letters, and stuck them in an envelope and actually mailed them. We waited for responses and carried on with our life in the meantime. We did the checkbook by hand and we picked up the phone more frequently when we had a question.

Well, a few weeks ago my computer went into the computer hospital and it felt like I was donating my right arm to science for a few days. I’m sure I probably held my breath slightly while I handed it over. Within a few hours without my computer, I learned a few things.

I learned I really can still write long hand. It may not be as fast as I can type, but I used old fashioned paper and pen to do my writing. But more importantly, I learned I waste more time than I realized on the computer. The first day, I automatically walked back to my office frequently to check email or to research items on eBay or something similarly mindless. The first few hours, I actually found myself wandering through the house at times like I didn’t know what to do. Unbelievable!

That’s when it hit me that I have more “free” time in my day than I thought I did. I just didn’t realize how much time I wasted doing mindless things that didn’t really matter. It wasn’t huge blocks of time, but just little five and ten minute blurbs here and there and in between teaching or grading school work. For a mom, little blurbs of time in a day add up to be many much needed sanity-regaining-moments!

Since I’ve gotten my computer back, I’ve been more mindful of my time and how I spend it … even the blurbs. It’s sort of like gaining an extra hour in your day without daylight savings.

With today’s technology we are so plugged in and as a result it’s easy to not see how time savers become time wasters. So if you need a push to discover your extra free time, just ship your computer or iPhone off to the techno hospital for a few days. You’ll be amazed!