by Rebecca Kocsis
I think I’m in a rut. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I’m in a rut. One day runs into another and each one looks just like the last. I get up, do my devotions and rouse the kids (or make sure they’re up). I look at my to do list and realize once again that there’s no way I will get everything finished. Sigh…
But I make a mental note to move a little faster and stay a little more focused. Staying focused is easier said than done in my house. I sometimes find it impossible to finish a thought, let alone focus on one thing for more than a few minutes at a time. You’ve heard the term, “perish the thought”? That’s what happens to most of mine. They perish before they’re even completed, because I am always interrupted.
We start the day with prayer and Bible study. (Why is it when we sit down to pray, it is inevitable that the interruptions come one after another?) We move on to schoolwork and after school activities. Sometimes I feel more like a referee than a parent and a teacher. I enter my office and am confronted with a desktop so loaded that I can’t find the work surface and a voicemail that tells me, “You have seventeen messages.” Dinnertime arrives and, “What’s for dinner?” is a question nobody knows the answer to – not even me! The evening’s activities usually include more unfinished office work and maybe some schoolwork. I run from one activity to the next with never enough time to do anything justice. Before I know it, bedtime arrives. I hit the pillow with the depressing thought, “Tomorrow is going to be just like today. Nothing new. Not enough time. More frustration. Is this all there is?”
Then the Lord, in gentle answer to my question says, “No, this is not all there is. As futile as some of your days may seem, your efforts are not in vain. One day soon, I will come back for you. You will spend eternity with Me in heaven. Then your trials will vanish. Your service will be rewarded, and it will all have been worth it. This is definitely not all there is.”
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Cor. 4:17-18 (ESV)