another chapter in the self-discipline book

I'm going to turn off our internet for the month of July. Keith's too busy working to use it anyway, and I want to spend these summer months with my children, not checking Facebook to see who ate what for dinner. I miss time with God. I want time to read, sleep, eat better, pray, work on projects, and overall just enjoy life. Not that the internet has kept me from those things, exactly, but my lack of self-discipline when I stay up too late browsing Heartsy instead of climbing into bed beside my husband then affects my morning after, when I am too tired to get up and have a quiet time and start the day dragging instead of rejoicing with my little ones.

I know how I want to live, and I'm not living that way. Some ways, some times, maybe. But there are all these books I want to read and they find their way from the library to my shelves, where they sit until they are due. Unread. And there is healthier food that I need to eat, and I know that the Lord is constantly drawing me to it, but my mind is tired and my heart unsettled, and so I cave to quick carbs instead of creating deliberate meal plans and tackling the hard work of going raw. And I am craving long walks, but instead of two or three a week, I'm squeezing one in every two or three weeks. And my body is not healthy.

I do play with my children, but I want to play with them more. Rilla has discovered how to make pancakes out of sand, and Abraham loves puzzles and cows and so especially loves his puzzle with a cow on it. He's cruising around furniture now and is so full of glee about it. They are both the sweetest children and they just want to cuddle with me, and have me read to them, and play together, and go for walks outside. They are fresh and eager to learn. Our relationships together are solid, we are all nicely attached, their naptimes are [at last] beginning to sync up, and we live in a beautiful place to... well, to live. Every day with them is more beautiful than the one before. Rilla began to pronounce "Abraham" this week instead of saying "Ameham." In little ways like that one, she grows up a bit more every day. I don't want to miss it.

And we have become a part of a lovely small group that meets for a good six hours or so every Sunday. There are nine adults and nine kids and we eat and our kids play and we talk about Jesus and cry and pray for each other. And we do life together. It's what I've been craving for so long, it's what makes it worth it to stay in St. Maries despite Keith's crazy hours, and I want to enjoy it while we've got it. I guess I feel that I don't need the mostly emotionless and unfulfilling interactions of Facebook when there are actually real people in our real lives now who really care about us.

I love the routine that I have now with my children. I love that having two children now seems normal and doable. I love how much they love each other and how much they love me and how much they love their daddy. I love, love, love this life together and I'm crying because I just want to bottle it up and never, ever let the sands of time move from where they are now.

And when the days are hard, which they are every day at 3 or 4 pm when my energy and imagination is sapped, I want to run to Jesus, to learn what it is that He wants me to learn during this time of quiet and shuffle. I don't want to be always checking everyone's blogs and seeing everyone's pictures and reading about what other people are learning. I want time to write my own story, both literally and figuratively. Ann Voskamp says that "a whole life can be lost in minutes wasted, small moments missed," and the conviction of that sits heavy on me. For some it may be easy enough to only use internet an appropriate amount, but I always linger too long.

This summer, this life, it wants to be beautiful. I don't want to get to the end of it and wish that I'd lived it differently. I want to savor every morsel, to carve out careful moments of retreat for myself rather than run to the internet as a lousy excuse for an escape. I want to live my best life, to cut off the thing that is offending me and throw aside the sin that is entangling me.

So I don't know if I will blog for a while. Probably I will, because probably I will use the internet a few times a week at the library. But even there, I know that I will have to choose between being drawn into Amazon and Facebook or curling up on beanbags with my children and reading a few new books together. There are few people who I really keep up with in a meaningful way online; if you are one of them, we still can.

If you want to pray for me this summer, I sure could use it. Sometimes I'm doing great and sometimes I'm really, really not. I really need self-discipline. Specifically, I need time with the Lord. I need to go to bed at a decent hour. I need consistent exercise. I need to stop pulling my hair out. I need to learn to eat well in a way that is sustainable. And I need to spend less time online. All of these things seem to be connected to one another, and so for me, the easiest way to start is just to cancel the internet. I can't seem to control it otherwise. We did great without it for a few months after we moved last year, and I know we're going to do fine again. Although at the moment, the thought of not being able to check Heartsy every day makes my throat close up. Can you spell a-d-d-i-c-t-i-o-n?

(And what if I want to make a photobook?? Or order diapers from Amazon? Or... or... or so many other important things like that? Well... I guess there is such thing as making a list, and then actually doing those things when I have internet access instead of getting lost in useless stuff. Right?)

I was driving home tonight with my little ones and the thought came to mind, what do I want out of life? And the thought came, unbidden, that what I really want is to someday be able to stand alongside the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 and not feel ashamed. And the thought came too that right now, I don't really think that's how things are going. So what do I have to do to get there? What do I have to do to get from the indolent way that I'm living to the faith-filled way that the Lord wants me to live? Casting off the internet is a small thing, but I hope that it will help a little.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-3)