Music is in the air. Frost and fog introduce winter, and I think Christmas is almost near. As a music afficionado, this means one thing: Concerts! Students from Aletheia Christian College and Liberty Christian Academy are dancing in the Eugene Ballet’s Nutcracker tonight at the College of Southern Idaho. There is talk of some students performing at St. Luke’s annual fundraiser, Festival of Trees. The annual Christmas concert is coming up on Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 6 pm, ACC staff have been invited to run a Christmas Eve service at a local church in Jerome.
Add to all this the planning of classes for spring, regular engagements recruiting and speaking in various local and regional churches, taking care of my active 6 month old son during my wife’s ballet classes and performances, teaching Bible study on sunday nights at my church, getting classes wrapped up for this semester, and I have one busy, normal American schedule. With living 35 minutes away from work and church and only one working car, I have spent several nights away from my family in the last week. Paperwork adds up daily and will overflow with end of the year bookkeeping, receipts and newsletters this next month.
When is the time to sit and relax? When is the time to focus on friends and family? When is the time to rest and reflect on life?
One of the advantages of being in education is the knowledge that finals will come, grades will be done, concerts will be over, and I will have time to breathe between Christmas and New Years before hitting life again with utmost ferocity in January. There are always tides and ebbs in life. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 talks about the times in life, and as a 21st Century American with friends in nearly every time zone on earth, I must remember to embrace rest when it comes upon me. So, looking forward to Christmas, I ask:
What do you do to take time out during the Holy Days to think? To worship? To be with family? To sleep?
What are the major hurdles to overcome between now and your next day of rest? How far away is that day of rest?
