I found it rather ironic that it took me over a month to write a blog about having no timeouts as a parent! In almost every team sport that I can think of, there are a certain number of timeouts allowed. Coaches use these in various strategic ways such as running down the clock in football. However, from the moment one becomes a parent, there are no timeouts allowed!
This thought originally came to me as I was preparing (or trying to prepare) for an important zoom meeting I had in just a few minutes. This was the moment that my 17 year old son and my 10 year old son both decided to push every boundary they had ever been given! Over this past month, which has been crazy with too many kid-related activities to enumerate, I have again pondered this idea of parental timeouts.
As I have mentioned in the past, I do begin my mornings with Jesus and coffee. After that though, I am running for all I am worth most of the day. As a child, I hated being sent to my room for a timeout, or horror of horrors–a nap! Now, I wish someone would send me to my room!
At this point in my parenting journey, having young adult children, teenagers, and small children, just walking out of the room for a minute can mean chaos breaks out. However, throughout all of this, Jesus is still sustaining me. I am trying to learn to rest in Him in my spirit, even if I can’t physically rest (ideally in a beautiful shady glen in a hammock far away in the woods…) and be patient with everything and everyone around me. As all my family would testify, I am far from perfect at this, but I am getting better. I always find it encouraging to remember that Jesus needed timeouts with God too. He wasn’t afraid to step away for a minute, even though the crowds were all still needy. In this same way, sometimes I need to put my children into God’s hands and take a minute by myself to pray.
I suspect that I am still many, many years from having regular timeouts, but with Jesus sustaining me, I can stay in the game!
“Yet the news about Him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:15-16
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