The Hours are Honest

There is not going to be time for it all, not even close. So I have to choose, and wisely. And the hours are honest. The minutes pile up around the things I care most about.  I cannot truthfully say to myself I am enthralled with literature when my minute piles congregate around watching hockey play-offs while skimming blogs. You know, just as an example.

Of course there are the things I must do--not for the love but the responsibility. The minutes pile around laundry as high as the laundry itself, and that by no means proves I value laundry above all else.

But what do I choose when I have a choice? What do I do with the hour from 5 to 6 a.m., once the coffee is made and the husband is kissed goodbye? What do I do when two glorious hours of freedom greet me on my way out of the preschool door?

I know the answers, and I don't like them.

I used to say, back in the corporate day, that my job was incompatible with who I was, who I wanted to be. I cited the contrast between my heart to serve and love the least of these with my role to manage risk and resources so a soulless company could make money. I promised myself (oh the lies I told myself!) that when that next stage came--perhaps in the leaving work to raise a young family stage--I would read and study and pray and serve and write and live the gospel.


But I have broken that promise.

I'm not saying it's wrong for me to spend several hours a week running or reading fluff or watching T.V or relearning the piano or eating cheetos while tracking brown bears. (Okay, that last one might not be wrong, but it's definitely not wise.)


I'm just saying that the way I spend my life--what I choose when I have a choice--starting with the minutes, followed by the hours, flowing into days, adding up to months and years and lifetime--that this reveals what I truly value.

And I don't want to be 72 years old before I realize there is no such thing as must-see TV, that the people around the table are vastly more important than the ones on the page, that I could run forever and get nowhere.

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What do you say you value? Does it match what you do with your "free" time (assuming you have even one drop of it)? What do you choose when you have a choice?