Abundance:
noun
1. an extremely plentiful or oversufficient quantity or supply:
an abundance of grain.
2. overflowing fullness: abundance of
the heart.
3. affluence; wealth: the enjoyment of
abundance.
Today
I dropped my oldest two daughters off at school and then ran back home to get
their winter coats. I had sent them to
school not realizing the bitter cold of the wind chill factor. I took my third homebody daughter to preschool
with a heavy heart, stopped by a nearby school to talk to a teacher there about
another daughter, and then drove across town to deliver the winter items at my
girls’ school. I found myself back at
home with breakfast dishes still on the table, a toddler still in her jammies,
and several phone calls to make in the half hour before I had to leave to pick
up my preschooler just before lunch. It
seemed like I was doing a lot of things without accomplishing much.
This
time of year when we hear so much about abundance,
I wonder if the above sentiment is reflective of our society. As a society, we do a lot of things and have
a lot of stuff, but are we accomplishing anything? We have an abundance of information. A
quick check of the parenting section of any bookstore will attest to this. We have an abundance of activity. My
barely 8 year-old can be enrolled in swimming, soccer, ice-skating, basketball,
4-H, dance, Girl Scouts, church activities, art classes, singing groups,
student council, and the list goes on.
And that’s in rural Sheridan! Not
to mention what my other daughters and their parents could be involved in! We have an abundance of material
goods. Not too long ago, a major
department store was in the news for destroying clothing that didn’t sell and
throwing it away instead of donating it to charity. I frequent garage sales, and it seems clear
that most people have STUFF they want to get rid of—often pretty nice stuff
that they or their kids have simply grown tired of. My husband and I often imagine what Laura
Ingalls Wilder’s mother would do if she could walk into any one of our houses
and turn on the faucet or flip on a light switch or take a picture or have a
machine do her clothes washing, or. . . .
Is there more to abundance
than what Webster’s calls “an ample or overflowing quantity”? Are we missing something?
In
asking these questions, I turn my mind back to Christmas vacation last
year. The kids were home from school for
two long weeks with plenty of snow outside, and we had a GREAT time. I hated for school to start again! We played games (the out-of-town cousins
taught our 5 year-old and 7 year-old how to play chess); we sledded outside and
generally got covered in the white stuff; we had family movie nights; we drove
around and looked at Christmas lights; we READ; we went for walks and threw
snowballs; we cooked and cleaned and talked and played. We didn’t do much, and we didn’t accomplish
much. Or did we? We had few, if any, scheduled activities and
enjoyed mostly unstructured time together.
We didn’t spend much money and yet nobody was complaining. We didn’t make any grand plans and yet that
time holds some of our fondest memories.
Why?
I
found part of the answer in dictionary.com’s definition of abundance. It is “overflowing
fullness: abundance of the heart;
affluence; wealth: the enjoyment of
abundance.” Ah, the enjoyment of abundance. Not
the stressed-out complaining I do in my mind about my abundance of things to
do, places to go, projects to complete, etc.
Not the burden of accumulating so many possessions that my possessions
end up possessing me and my time! Not
the distracting (though often fun) abundance of e-mails, voicemails, text
messages, and snail mail. No, this kind
of abundance enjoys itself. To say it differently, if the abundance
leaves me too frazzled to enjoy it, then perhaps it is not abundance at
all! It is interesting to note at this
point that God Himself created us for (and provides) this most satisfying kind
of abundance. The Bible says in John
10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I
have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” I want to identify those “thieves” of
busyness in my life that are stealing precious time with my family and
destroying opportunities for family growth.
I want to go to the God of Abundance for direction in this endeavor of
parenting.
So,
where do we find this God-given abundance that we can enjoy? What do we have an
abundance of, as mothers of young children, that we can both enjoy and use to accomplish something? I
think the answer is opportunities. We have endless opportunities to love, teach,
train, enjoy, celebrate, and pray for our children! The balance lies in leaving enough room in
our schedules to take advantage of these opportunities. My father-in-law says that we will never have
quality time with our kids if we don’t have quantity time with them. We can’t force quality time in one hour every
other Saturday morning. So, in this
season of misunderstood abundance, we at the Hoffmann house are asking some
tough, out-of-the-box questions. . . .
Does our 4 year-old really need two years of preschool—or even one? Should we allow our 8 year-old to enroll in
more than one activity outside of school?
Will we allow our kids to go to birthday parties on Sundays, since this
has traditionally been our “family day”? How many Christmas presents do our kids really
need? How can we encourage them to give
away some of their things—and what excesses do we have ourselves? Should we really get that second television? What kind of responsibilities do I have
outside my home that are not necessary or
healthy at this stage of our family’s life?
Can I let someone else do these jobs while I nurture my small children
and then jump back into them when everyone is in school? Am I running my children all over town for
things that could just as easily (and probably more lovingly) be taught at
home? Should we maintain our facebook
page or let it go? (NOW I’m talking
crazy!)
I
am not completely against activities for my small children or the chance to
develop some of my own relationships and interests during this busy stage of
life, but at the end of the day I want to be able to say that, as a stay-at-home
mom, I connected with each one of my kids in some kind of meaningful way. If my life does not currently allow for that,
I must re-evaluate. I want to be able to
do less and accomplish more. I want to
experience life “more abundantly.” And
it would be a bonus if those breakfast dishes got cleared off the table before
lunch.
To see
what God says on the topic of abundance, go to www.biblegateway.com and type in the
word “abundantly” or “abundance” in the search bar.
- Robin Hoffmann, MOPS Cordinator
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