moment by moment

This past week, I spent the days with Destiny and Jasmine while mom and Macaela were at the first Oregon TeenPact class. At first, I was a little overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to fill their time all week while simultaneously needed to get a lot of preparation for other things accomplished. My natural instinct was to get them to watch movies, play on their own, or read a book while I do my own thing. But I knew this was in no way "making the most of every opportunity." A few times, I asked people to pray that I would really die to myself and just love them with the time I had this past week. And as mom and Macaela got home on Friday night, I realized He had answered those prayers.

Even though my flesh was making up all kinds of excuses to not go to the work of doing this, we spent two days making a movie together. It turned out so cool, we had a blast together, and even I felt so spiritually rewarded. Why would I make excuses to sit on a couch when I could have times and memories like these?

Saturday afternoon, I had a lot to do to be ready for the second Oregon class. Macaela, Destiny, and Jasmine asked me to come play frisbee in the field with them, but I had to say, "no, I've got a lot of things I need to get done," which was true. But as I sat with my computer, God reminded me once again of how quickly these times will be gone, how fast the memories are made and never forgotten. So I got up and went out into the gorgeous sunny field and had a beautiful time playing with my sisters. Even though Destiny couldn't throw straight and Jasmine never caught the frisbee once, just the fact that the were all together was so rewarding.

Moment by moment, we make decisions. Sometimes, they don't seem like very important decisions. Sometimes, we're completely justified in the choices we make; we do get busy, we do need certain things. But those moment by moment choices are what will make up the rest of our lives. Allow God's vision for your life to guide every moment.

It's worth it.