There Are Very Few Emergencies

Reading on the beach with my toes in the sand.  One of my favorite things about vacation.

One of the books I read last week was The Homeschool Experiment: a Novel by Charity Hawkins.  The book recounts the author's experiences as a beginning homeschooling mother of three small children.  Charity (not her real name) shares the challenges of trying to choose curriculum, of being overwhelmed by all the choices, of all the conflicting advice she received from family, friends, and other homeschooling families.  In that sense, this is not so much a story about homeschooling as it is the universal story of all parents who are constantly being bombarded with opinions about how they should be parenting their children.

It was amusing to read the various anecdotes about her children (first grade, kindergarten, and baby).  I likely would have been less amused if I were still in that season of my life, but now that I am far removed from dealing with small children on a daily basis, it was good entertainment.

The book was an easy read.  Schooling choices.  Sippy cups.  Temper tantrums.  Field trips.  The daily challenge of trying to keep life on an even keel in a world of crayons and diapers and strollers and board books.

While I laughed my way through much of the book, there were some serious lessons learned along the way.  One of the most important was summed up in this quote:  there are very few emergencies.

The context of the quote is a conversation between the main character and her mother about the stress in her life, specifically the stress of trying to be the perfect homeschooling mom to three young children.  But the truth applies much more broadly than that, doesn't it?

There are no perfect parents.  No perfect children.  Not even you and yours.  Gasp!

We take ourselves much too seriously.  We stress over things that aren't worth stressing over.  Like some spilled milk.  Or a dropped ice cream cone.  Or a tired child in the supermarket.

We stress when the neighbor's child plays a video game we don't allow our child to play.  When our coworker gushes about a TV show or movie we think is garbage.  When family members or friends or fellow church members don't have exactly the same priorities about exactly the same everything as we do! 

We just stress too much.  We make emergencies where there are none.

Let it go!  Not everything is an emergency!

Life will go much more smoothly if we give ourselves permission to relax.  Even more, it will go much more smoothly when we stop making emergencies out of every little thing. 

We need to learn what's really important.  We need to learn to keep our focus on God and on obeying Him.  And we need to focus a lot less on all the other stuff.

"Obey God, and leave all the consequences to Him."  - Charles Stanley