Time alone

After a couple of snow days, we were able to get out and about to run some errands yesterday. The children’s desires for food (first on the list) and their own purchases (last on the list) were successful, so they were quite cooperative in between. You’d think I would have planned it that way. :-)

When we arrived home in the evening, we all went to do our own things for a time. I know, many families do this, but I usually feel as if I should do more to engage the children or my spouse in their activities or my own. However, God helped me to realize how individual we each are even though we walk this earthly journey together at this time. We had had two wonderful days playing, learning, serving, fighting, and mending together, really together, and now was a time for us to each just focus on our own needs of work or play or a combination.

Why bother to share this? Because I don’t want any of you to fall into the trap that I did about living life on purpose. Intentional intimacy isn’t about doing something together every available moment; it isn’t about making sure you are always focused on the other person in your life; it is about engaging your family members in meaningful ways, and sometimes those meaningful ways are to let them be on their own and plan for themselves what they will do for a while, even the younger ones.