Life-life Balance

Work rarely features on 

my weekends – it’s just me, family, friends and ministry. Every Friday evening, I go to sleep with a smile on my face because I know I am not going to work the next day…

This past Friday, however, I did not have that smile on my face because my perfectly laid plans for the weekend had already unraveled.

I had planned a huge chunk of “me time” for my Saturday. I was going hear the word, fellowship with sisters, and pray. It had been determined well in advance and I was looking forward to it! But sometime during the week, the girls had reminded me that Saturday was fun fair at school. Panic! Not Saturday! I have plans for Saturday! And then the deluge began…I received a notification for the PTA meeting for my eldest daughter’s school, same Saturday. Then I remembered that we had received an invitation to a friend's son's birthday party, same Saturday. What! All in one day! And let’s not forget that the girls usually have a home tutor come over for two hours on Saturday as well. Something had to give, so, leading up to Friday, I had already figured out that we could only do so much in one day. I cancelled the home tutor and made plans for the girls to be at their fun fair with adult supervision. We would have to miss the birthday party and the PTA meeting, but the girls were happy and I was happy. That is, until a family emergency scuttled my plans to get the girls to school!

On Friday evening, I realized that the only way the girls were going to get to school was if I took them myself. It was a choice to either do something for me or something for them. So began the discussion within me…

My first responsibility is to myself. I need to be healthy, put together,connected to my Saviour. I need to invest in myself because I cannot give what I do not have. I need time to relax, reload, refire. God “rested” on the 7th day of creation, so also, I need rest from my labours. God has designed for us to “get away” from time to time, so that we can be refreshed either by others or just by being alone. That is why Jesus regularly took time away from people, including his disciples. Me-time is essential time! So perhaps the girls need to sit this fun fair out. Perhaps they have to stay at home…But I have to consider their interests as well…

The truth of the matter is that I was seriously conflicted. If I had someone else to take them to school, I probably would not have given it a second thought, but the fact that the plans had fallen through made me think deeply about balance.

While trying to maintain a work-life balance, there is a balancing act to be done in the life segment as well. Depending on how much of a social butterfly one is, one will typically have a lot to fit into a weekend, and some days, it appears like everyone wants a piece of our time. Sometimes, to be able to meet up with all these obligations, it is our time with the people that really matter that suffers. We definitely need to do other things, meet with other people, have a life, but we need to purposefully evaluate our choices and always ensure we have made enough room for the really important things.

In the end, I had to consider the fact that the week before, I had cancelled some “us-time” because weekend plans had changed (as they seem to be doing a lot of lately). The week before,  I had chosen to preserve my “me-time”. I decided it was not advisable to do it a second consecutive time.

So, I changed my plans and took them to their fun fair. I also took time to explain to them that although Mummy had made plans to go out, she had changed the plans because she needed to balance important aspects of her life.

I’m happy I went with the “us-time”. Spending the time with them allowed us to interact and also afforded us opportunities to laugh together and to talk. The girls had a fantastic day. It ended up being a win-win because I had fun too. The icing on the cake - we won second and third prizes at the raffle draw, so, yes, it was a good day!