I've been tossing this idea around for a while.
Sharing that honestly is a bit of a scary thought, isn’t it?
I’m talking “free time.” What do you do (or would you do) when you don’t have to do anything?
Sure, some might say there’s no such thing. There are always responsibilities. Always the need to plan, to do. No time to just be. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, right?
Well, of course, if I didn't have to ... go to work, mow the lawn, shovel the snow, pay the bills, do mountains of laundry, chauffeur kids around, attend meetings, make dinner, study, clean up dog poop and cat barf, fix the bathroom sink, go to the gym, get the oil changed, finish the Christmas shopping, plan events, ... do all this stuff ... I'd:
- Spend all day helping people. Visit the elderly, the sick, the poor, the hungry and homeless, the addicted, the imprisoned.
- Help build a house.
- Fight for justice and peace.
- Walk on the beach and enjoy the feel of sand crunching between my toes. Or take a hike. Or scale a mountain.
- Take a nap.
- Read a book and eat bon-bons.
- Follow all of the recent election coverage on YouTube and, um, SNL.
- Sit. And think.
- Make snow angels.
- Sink into the arms of my family and relive events of the past through their stories.
- Hold a friend's hand and let her know I hurt when she hurts.
- Make silly faces. Or guacamole.
- Chop vegetables into little bitty pieces. And make huge vats of soup. Then try to find unsuspecting souls to eat said vats of soup.
- Bake up a batch of bug pancakes (imaginary, of course!) with my favorite small people. And play hockey, of course. (I get to be goalie. Or the announcer. Or the fans.)
- Praise God and thank Her for this beautiful world and the people in it.
If only I didn't have so many other things to do!
A few years back, I dated a man in whom I saw tremendous potential. Others know this too about this man. He was - and is - one of the most talented musicians I have had the pleasure of knowing. He was incredibly funny - even when life was incredibly hard. He has a good heart. I just know that. He loves his children. But the challenges they face individually and as a family were (and probably still are) extreme, almost to the point of absurdity. Even so, I knew that if God blessed our relationship, the impossible could and would happen.
I was so disappointed when the man I loved chose to do certain things with his time when it was so obvious to me what he "should" have been doing! What I (self-righteously chest beating here) would have been doing if it were me.
There were times that I wondered if the choices he made - when left to his own devices - were a measure of his character - or something else entirely. To this day, I don't know the answer to that particular question, but somehow, I just don't think that was the lesson I was supposed to learn.
Sometimes things just don't work out the way we hope or plan. So we take the experience and make it a part of who we are and move on to the next adventure in store.
Every day presents another chance - to make a different choice, take another path, try a new thing. And it's all up to us. God gave us the blessing of free will. How do we choose to use it?
Mother Teresa said we can do no great things, only small things with great love.
Something to ponder: What would you do in the name of great love ... if left to your own devices?
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