With

"Better to rest in him from the start than to run without him all day long."

Every Sunday afternoon, I drag my family out to the yard, where we cook out and spend some time together without screens.

The wee one always jumps right in. This week she made mud pies with rain water, GA clay, and flowers (okay, weeds).

The big two sit. They are "bored." There's "nothing to do."

I'm refraining from making suggestions. I'm refraining from giving them ideas of how to fill their time. 

It started out my main goal was to provide some technology free consistency to our weekend. To model how to balance. How to CHOOSE real life over screens. 

My main goal has shifted to teaching my big kids how to be still. 

I honestly worry about the fact that they are rarely forced to wait. We sit in doctor's office waiting rooms and there are phones and handheld video games to keep them busy. I spent most of their early years keeping them engaged. 

I worry we've raised a generation of kids who don't know how to be still and KNOW. Who don't know how to wait. 

I worry that if they can't spend a half hour in the backyard sitting, they can't wait for God to operate on His time.

Yesterday I listened to this Ted Talk (okay, so I listened to like 7 Ted talks) about how technology gives us a false sense of connectedness. It tricks us into believing we are living our life. The speaker cautioned to make sure we aren't missing moments. That we are being fully present. 

I find when I'm out, people don't even make eye contact. Strangers don't make small talk. I'm very much the oddball at the toddler park (okay so I'm also nearly old enough to be the mother of the mothers) because I'm attempting to engage with the adults. 

We've become a society that doesn't sit still. We're a society that chooses what's in the palm of our hands over the people in front of us. 

22 Right away Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. He had them go on ahead of him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Then he sent the crowd away. 23 After he had sent them away, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone. Matthew 14:22 - 23

Mama Warriors, I know that often it's overwhelming to be someone's everything. To be their uber driver, their bathroom buddy, their chef, their comforter, their rule maker, their social calendar, their everything. Even Jesus had to take some time. Send the crowd away and be by himself. 

But in the moments we are WITH them, let's really be WITH them. Let's be all in. Let's model how to be still. Let's model how to choose what's right in front of us over a disconnected virtual world. 

Let's show them how to balance by balancing ourselves.