How Busy Are You?

Busy, busy, busy! In today's world, it seems that it is our goal to keep ourselves as busy as possible.  There are so many opportunities to keep us that way.  And it's almost become a challange to see who can boast the most about how exhausted they are from running here and there.  Instead of choosing one activity to be involved in, we choose several.  And if our children aren't involved in every opportunity that comes around, then we somehow have bought into the idea that we are bad parents or even worse, our children won't like us!  Heaven forbid!

Hmmm, let me do some Betsy analysis on this for a few minutes.  It is good for us to be involved in our community and church.  It is good for our children to be involved in extracurricular activities.  However, when we are so busy that we have no time for meal times together around the table, and we don't have time to do just simple family activities together, and when we've involved our children in so many activities that we have had to rob Peter to pay Paul, just to keep up the image of being the greatest parent ever, I think it may be time to rethink things.  

  

Here's  another thought.  Maybe we like to stay on the go to avoid dealing with issues in our lives and home that desperately need our attention.  If we continue to neglect them, those issues are only going to worsen.  Another problem I can see with committing to too many activities is that it spreads us so thin that we can't really give our best to each of them.  Maybe it is better to choose one activity and do it well than to choose several and only do a half-way job on each of them.

You may be wondering what this has to do with grief.  Well, it can have a lot to do with it.   I have found that staying busy can be beneficial to stave off some of the depression that goes along with grief.  Staying in contact with people and the world around us helps us realize that we are not the only one experiencing pain and sorrow.  But be aware, that staying too busy keeps us from dealing with the issues surrounding the loss.  We simply cannot heal if we don't give ourselves some quiet time to really reflect on our loss.  The loss happened, and the longer we deny it, the longer it will take us to move forward.  

You should know by now, that I'm not saying that going through the grief process is easy, but I am saying it is necessary.  We need to keep a healthy balance in our lives - whether we are grieving a loss or not.  And hey, if we stay too busy, we are going to miss out on the 

Sunshine After the Storm

Blessings!

Betsy