"Let's see...I need to choose which song I'll lead at the Harmonia Sacra singing tonight and practice that until I'm comfortable with it. I need to move all the wood from the right side of the woodshed so Mother has a place to carry in wood from the outside woodpile. I need to change the sheets on the bed that someone had an accident in last night. I'll make potato soup for supper, but I'll need to peel all the potatoes completely and use onion powder instead of chopped onions because Dad is on a special diet in preparation for his colonoscopy on Friday. I want to start taking down Christmas decorations and get the tree moved outside so I can clean and rearrange the living room. I definitely want to make sure I listen to my boys when they talk to me so they will know how important they are to me. Jeff is off today, so I want to be sure to show love to him. There's that awful pile of papers accumulating on the telephone counter again that I should get to. And oh yes, it's a new month so I need to make a blog header and find a background that goes well with it!"
And on it goes.
Truth be told, it's not just on New Years Day that I do this. Every night as I go to sleep, I think about what projects I need to tackle the next day, and how I can accomplish them while working around Moriah's schedule, especially her naptimes; certain jobs are easy to do with her "help" and certain ones are nearly impossible. Every morning as I wake up, my brain automatically opens the file called "To-Do List" and thinks what I can get started doing so I can check something off. Some days, this process is sluggish, and some days, it's energetic; but it always happens.
Maybe because of this, my heart breathed deeply and said, "Yes!" when I read the following prayer recently.
Maybe today is the perfect day to be reminded of what's more important than lists.
Planning the Day
sometimes on lengthy strips of paper.
How easily my life becomes a list--
a long scroll of dutes.
Sometimes the lists break down
into separate memos--
A batch of yellow memory scraps
each with an injunction.
Do this! Do that!
I can't get rid of my lists.
Perhaps there is some primitive magic here,
that if I name my duties I must perform them.
But then I almost always rebel.
These lists when they aren't burdening me,
give me an oppositional determination
to disobey and to do whatever I please.
Why do I put this "have-to-do-it" burden
on myself? It only makes me righteous,
artificially safe, and soul-tired.
Help me to sit here quietly.
Help me not so much to plan as to listen.
Help me to be informed, as in
"shaped from within," by Your will.
My burden is so heavy.
Yours is always light.
~ Gunilla Norris, in Being Home
Your post reminds me that making sure our loved ones feel special each day and that is one of the things I intend to do each day. After all, what are we without them? I remind myself that I would not want my Father in Heaven forget me.
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