Summer Guilt....

I had this written out a week ago to post but that's when our leak happened and everything with B so my posts changed.  This one is actually perfect for right now but some of the time frame is different...if that makes any sense! :)

Time?  Where does it go and how does it have the ability to make us feel so guilty?  I have never been in the position I am in now and so this post may seem weird to some people but with school approaching I still have "summer guilt." 

Last summer I was heading into a new grade so I spent a lot of the summer planning, buying, thinking and being stressed.  Then, when school started I was upset because I felt like I never really had a break and the kids didn't have the summer they deserve.  The summer before that I was preparing to start at AB so it was much of the same, the summer before that I was finishing school and starting a job in Cabot so much of the same....you get my drift.  This summer however, was going to be different.  There was no classroom prep so we were going to do all the fun things you see people on pinterest doing.  I made a short little list on my phone and got ready to check things off.  Only, not much of anything has been checked off.  These are simple things people...I'm talking about things like taking the kids to eat yogurt.  The most ambitious thing on there was to make a pine cone bird feeder for the back yard.  However, I'm not even sure I can find pine cones this time of year??  Needless to say, the summer of the stay-at-home mom looked much like the summer of the teaching mom just with less teaching.  Make sense?

That got me thinking...when does it slow down?  Does it ever slow down?  Most people would say no but why?  This morning Rachel and I were talking on our run about the summers we had growing up (yes, that officially makes us old) and they were restful, quiet and LONG.  Now, I feel like they are spent running errands, cleaning, working (whether at home or out of the home), appointments and so forth.  You blink and it's gone.

On top of "summer guilt", I also have a new type of guilt....a guilt watching all my friends return to work and I'm not.  It's hard to explain or understand.  Then, I started thinking....I have started inventing new kinds of guilt in my head!!  Instead of resting in being where the Lord has me in this season of my life, I am finding ways to be uneasy.  The fact is, yes the summer has flown by but in reality my kids have had an excellent summer and have loved it.  Yes, my friends are returning to work and I have a mixture of emotions but we are all right where God wants us. 

Yesterday morning in Sunday School we talked about the verse in Ecclesiastes about time..."For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven......"  (3:1-8).  I may not have made bird feeders with my kids this summer (and seriously...I do realize this is probably a fall activity) but there is a time for every matter under Heaven.  I'm not sure if that speaks to anyone else but it definitely spoke to me.