When You Wonder What’s Important To You

I remember those seasons of parenting when a tiny cherub finally drifted off to sleep at some random time of day. In a bleary-eyed stupor, I’d stumble through my to-do list, frantically trying to decide how to spend the next precious hour or two. 

Sleep? 

Play with the other kiddos? 

Fold the growing pile of laundry?

Finish that blog post? 

Call to set up that appointment?

Edit and submit that piece? 

Clean up the kitchen?

Scrub the nasty floors?

Clean out that closet?

Respond to those emails?

Return a few phone calls? 

By the time my foggy brain could focus on an option or two, I’d hear that familiar muffled cry and drag my weary self back to the wee one in need. 

I don’t miss that stage of motherhood but I’m grateful for (and sobered by) what it revealed about my priorities. Even if only in retrospect.

Work=highly important.

Sleep=not so much, apparently.

I valued productivity over presence, ‘getting it done’ over connecting with others or myself, a choice I continue to wrestle with today–without napping newborns. 

So, how do we decide what’s important to us? 

To whom or what do we give our limited time? 

These questions are not so easy to answer, especially when many of us are wired to want to pack our clocks and calendar squares until they’re bursting. Or when our western culture preaches achievement, productivity, and hustle over connection, rest, and presence. (Please refer to America’s maddening policies on maternity leave–and the latest CDC guidelines on Covid and their impact on the disabled and medically fragile communities.) 

Church culture is no different. The conservative evangelical spaces in which I was raised and served as a young adult and mother did nothing to challenge the broader culture that remains hellbent on ‘doing more for Jesus.’ (As if Jesus was a machine that never napped on a boat or needed to completely disengage from people.)

In fact, full-time ministry further complicated things for me when God was portrayed as the ultimate CEO ready to thump me for being weary and in need of rest. Any ‘no’ I could muster left me wracked with profound guilt because only the lazy, selfish Christian would admit to God, “I’m doing more than I was meant to and I need to step back.” 

Growing in my understanding of God, therapy, close friends, and learning how to set healthy boundaries have helped me process the root of those toxic thoughts and unhealthy patterns. While time management will always be a bit of a challenge, I am better equipped to resist the bad theology and pressure from others in how I spend it.

I wish I could offer some sort of formula or fool-proof plan to help you decide what’s important in your life. That kind of framework may be effective in the short-term but I have yet to see how that way of thinking helps people thrive over the long-haul. 

We’re all in process, moving with the seasons, adjusting to new jobs, new homes, new stages of parenting, new diagnoses, and new limitations and freedoms. Strict rules do nothing to help those of us who exist in the reality of our full, evolving lives. We need space to grow, grace to keep learning, and wisdom to find helpful ways to manage the hours we’ve been given.

So, what do we do? Well, the following questions can serve as a helpful guide as we consider where to spend our limited time and energy in every season of life. I hope they serve you. 

Who is essential in your life?

How are you nurturing those relationships?

What brings you joy? 

How can you invite joy into your life today?

Where do you feel anxious? 

How can you offer kindness to yourself in that anxiety?

What brings you peace?

How can you create space to experience divine peace in your life today?

What does rest look like for you?

Where can you incorporate regular times of rest into your schedule?

What does it mean for you to be fully present in your life in this season?

I wish I had known to ask these questions when I was a young adult. I would have agreed to fewer requests to do more and (likely) lived without resentment toward those asking.

I wish I had known to ask these questions as a mom of Littles. I would have done less housework and made more time for rest and writing.

I wish I had known to ask these questions as a thirtysomething balancing motherhood and writing and ministry. I would have parented and worked more from a place of peace and joy rather than fear and frustration.

Taking time to answer thoughtful questions can help us clarify what we need–and what we really want–in every season–without guilt. 

As you take the time to ask these questions, may you sense the nearness and grace of the Divine, who is with you and for you in the answers. 

Which questions most resonate with you? Feel free to share below or send me an email.  

Featured photo by John Mark Arnold at Unsplash