[Photo Credit - SD Dirk - Flickr]

I am a husband, father, small group leader for adults and also to high school guys.  I work full time.  Faith works full time and goes to school part time.  All this to say that my life has become busier and busier.  I have noticed the last several weekends that I am spending 1-2 hours at church on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday either volunteering, leading a group, or worshiping.  I ask myself where my weekend has gone and I realize how much time I am sacrificing to help out at church.  So where is my day of rest at?  I lost it somewhere along the way.  I am beginning to feel the effects of not having that day off.

I always seem to reach this point where I know that I have to make some decisions about where I can be involved and still have a healthy relationship with God.  If I am going to volunteer and my heart is not totally into it for a while, I know something is off.  So I have decided to make some changes give me Sunday back.  I am going to be primarily spending my Sundays with my family.  If Faith has to work Saturday night, I am not going to serve on Sunday so that she can sleep and I get to spend more time with her when she is awake.  I also want to make it a priority that Faith and I get to go to church together instead of trading off the kids when we are volunteering.  There may be some more changes down the road about how I spend my time, but right now my goal is to take Sundays back again.

I know a lot of people who work their jobs during the week and then give time at church on the weekend.  There are a lot of passionate non-pastors out there who love to serve God.  We fall into the same trap as pastors and need a day off.  The weekend is not time off for pastors and for many volunteers.  Living life at a seven day pace is very unhealthy for us physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  It can also be harmful to your relationships with family and friends.  If you keep pouring yourself out, eventually you will be empty.  You must make time to be filled back up.  I don’t think 1 hour on Sunday is enough.

Rick Warren says that we should “Divert daily. Withdraw weekly. Abandon annually.”

Do you need to call time out and allow yourself to be refreshed and refilled?  When is the last time you really took a day?

While Faith is gone for the weekend relaxing, watching chick flicks, and partying with the ladies in her family, I am single daddy for the weekend and living it up with my kids.  Today we went to the zoo and had a blast looking for all of the animals and riding the train.  They got to pet some snakes, which Faith would have loved (Not Really), and ride the train.  No pics of the snakes because they don’t like flash photography.  But here are some shots of the kids and animals having fun today.

I skipped a month.  Did anyone notice?  Ok, so things got a little crazy and I wasn’t doing so hot on weight loss.  And now according to my latest blood test, my cholesterol is high too.  So now I have to revamp my entire diet and and get agressive with things.  At my last official weigh in 4 weeks ago I was 276.4.  Today I am at 276.2 and back on track.  I am no longer winging the counting of portions deal.  I am counting every single ounce and trying to keep the fats as low as I can.  I have to make some tough decisions and make better choices than I have been lately.  So expect to see updates weekly again and I hope to make much better progress this time.

I really like this song and saw the video was up tonight, so I thought I would share it.

This is just a test post to see if I can post to this blog with Window Live Writer portable.