It’s beautiful, valuable and makes people rich. Gold? No, family time. Let’s protect it, like the gold at Fort Knox.
A Solid Foundation. Got a Bible? You’re covered. Use it liberally all over your family time together. Devotions at the dinner table. Visible references around your house. They all firmly plant a family in the Holy Word of God.
Multiple Barriers Of Protection. First, build a simple fence by telling folks around you that Sundays are sacred. Please don’t schedule anything on that day. You simply won’t be there. It’s God’s day. Not theirs or ours.
To protect dinner time, simply ask, “Can we schedule my meetings during my lunch hour? Dinner time at my house is set aside for my family. No? Well, it will have to wait for my attention.” Or ”No, I can’t go to __________ when my husband comes home. It will need to happen another time — we all eat together.” You can always eat early or late if neccessary, but do it together. If they are offended, so be it.
Send those powerful statements to the world not to mess with your family time. Tell them that it’s worth losing things over — money, pleasure etc. Funny, family time will actually increase your riches, just not the worldly kind.
Insist that your teenagers honor your family’s commitment to time together. Kids don’t leave home and say, “Dang, I wish I spent less time with my family while I was there! ” Quite the opposite occurs–especially for parents when their kids are grown, “I wish I would have been home for dinner more. I wish I would have been there to hear my kids talk about their day.”
Building layers of protection around Sundays and dinner is difficult. Our worldly foes know this. That is why it is so EASY to discard it or use it for other enterprises. It’s up to us to guard it with all of our motherly might.
Dinner: It doesn’t have to be a Norman Rockwell dinner every night. I say that their butts just need to be in the seats. When my husband comes home late, we come back to the table and talk while he is eating. Maybe we had to eat, but we all still need to connect.
Sunday: My husband is the champion of our Sundays. It’s family day. Period. If kids have a soccer tournament in another town, we can go to church as a family anywhere, not just our home parish. Can kids wear a stinky sweaty uniform to Mass or church? Yes, it sends a message that they care, beyond anything else. If God can honor the ladies with the gobs of perfume and the dudes with dirt on their boots, He will honor your effort every single time.
What I need to realize is that when I am with my family, it’s golden. It’s up to me to protect it and hold on to its value. Only then will it shine.
“For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Acts 2:39
13 Comments
What a wonderful, wonderful post! I was thinking as I was reading it… I bet my parents wouldn’t have divorced had they held onto principles like cited in your article — placing value on “family time” and ALL of us going to church on Sunday’s (instead of just me and my mom). It’s kind of tough for demonic forces to infiltrate a family and tear it up when the heads of the family have their guard up!
I love this post! It’s the best advice I’ve read on the Net for a while now. Keep on keeping on, ladies. I’m a SITStah that had become your newest fan!
{Kathy} Carlo, thank you for visiting us! Moms are the unique barrier to Satan’s attack. We can protect our family through prayer and family togetherness. He stands no hope when we have our guard up in the name of Jesus. Amen?
Oh yes.
Definitely amen!
With sisters in faith like you two, we can all keep on our goal! I love this post (boy, don’t I always say that?!) Others may not understand our need to honor our Domestic Church, but you gals and your readers sure do, and I love to come here and connect and be encouraged.
Happy Weekend, everyone!
xo
{Kathy} Honoring our Domestic Church as the Holy Family did is difficult in this day and age. Maybe I should just put a pipe organ in the middle of my living room to remind everyone that we are a Domestic Church?? As the mom, I feel that the spiritual climate of the household is up to me. My husband leads, but I make it happen. I am encouraged every day by women that do the same thing that I do. I am not alone in this, thank you Jesus.
It’s hard to believe that there are kids who have never even heard the term “family time”. We are time-pressed, but we always try to fit family activities into our busy schedules. So important, especially in this tech-driven world we live in! Love this post!
{Kathy} “Family time” can’t exist without a “family”. It is so important to protect it. Our technology does get in the way–I am so happy about the iPhone’s new feature Do Not Disturb. It makes sure your phone doesn’t ring/text unless it is someone on your favorites list! Check it out. Thanks for visiting!
What a motivating post! It’s so hard to not let the world’s priorities become ours… Time together, time in the Word, time praying together as a family. Those are the times that are cherished and valued and so easily forgotten when life gets too busy. Thank you for the reminder and the inspiration! 🙂
{Kathy} The world’s priorities can’t be ours or we will die, along with our family time. The world tells us to look out for number 1–the wrong number 1. Slowing down has to become deliberate because we are never encouraged to do so. Thanks for commenting once again!
love this and so true. I want that for Dinosaur, I want him to cherish his time with his family, want him to know that our family is important to his life.
I know with a loving and supportive family Dino will lead a spiritual and good life.
{Kathy} Karen, he will cherish his family time. When he becomes a teenager, he may not feel like it but he will. Thanks for visiting once again.
I love that you come back to the dinner table to eat with him. Lately we’ve been eating at 8pm….just to accommodate all the soccer practices! But it works.
{Kathy} If we lived in Europe, 8PM would not be that late! Soccer practices do seem to be the issue with a lot of families. They usually don’t start until everyone gets off from work and so that puts them at 6:00. After a 1.5 hour practice, most people are just getting home at 7:30. That’s just crazy. However, I TRY to have everything done that can be done ahead of time, table set and so forth before I leave for practice. I have been known to set the table for dinner while I am clearing breakfast dishes—just so I don’t have to do it later.