This is not any kind of great insight, but simply a realization I had this morning. I just had two nights in a row where both my wife and I were present to take care of the kids and get them to bed. Reading, catechism, prayers, etc. It is the first time we’ve had that for two nights in a row in WEEKS. AND we get to do it again tonight.

Wow.

I can just feel myself relax and settle into the normalcy of life when such things happen. I feel like I have been wound up since before Lent, and that things are just now starting to rebound and come down to the usual chaos.

It is so important to simply have time to be a family, to gather together, to sing and pray, play outside, chase around, and do whatever you do in your family. I am grounded when these things happen. My mood improves, my patience improves, everything is better.

But I can’t see that when I don’t have it. I get so obsessed with GETTING STUFF DONE that I forget who I am as a child of God, as a husband and father and pastor and neighbor, etc.

Be at peace, friends. Get some rest. Don’t try to get everything done, for you may lose yourself in a series of tasks that seem important at the time, but ultimately don’t really matter.

-DMR