Learning Routine

I apologize for going over a week without posting. Last week, we had Camp so it was busy, busy, busy. Once home, morning sickness began to hit me full force. Please be in prayer for me as I go about my day-to-day tasks.

Now that I am home after a week of Camp, I am glad to be back to the routine of my life here at home. Routine is something that sounds dull and unexciting, but I am learning that routine is anything but! I enjoy  routine. I like having a schedule and knowing where I should be and what ought to be done at a particular time. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy spontaneity too, but I am a planner at heart. I like structure and security and organization. And I am learning that it is essential to teach our children routine as well. Consistent routine gives little ones a very strong sense of peace, order, and security.
 
Elisabeth Elliot wrote in The Shaping of a Christian Home, "If everybody does that which is right in his own eyes there is no gathering together for a civilizaed breakfast, let alone for a quiet time in the living room afterwards. The frantic rush to find Father's briefcase, make school lunches, put on snow-pants and boots and get everybody out the door with the right lunch bags and schoolbooks, in time to be where they need to be, destroys peace for the rest of the day." (pg 77)

How much sense that makes! Leslie Ludy writes, "Routine protects those things that are most important in life: prayer, marriage, intimacy, and focused, purposeful times together as a family."

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." There is a time for spontaneous fun and games. There is a time for late night fun. But a bedtime schedule should be observed and a disciplined structure of quiet time should be enforced as well. Our goal as mothers and keepers of the home should be to instill that calm, orderly, routine in our homes and families. Why? Because, as Leslie Ludy said, it protects the things that are most important. If everyone ran around doing whatever they please all day, then we have a clashing of schedules and utter chaos when a parents decides to have some family time. However, if we implement routine, then the house knows that, come a certain time, everyone is to be in their place.

Grant and I are in the process of slowly developing a routine of family time (among other things) and I am finding that the peace that comes with a routine gives me time to truly sink into the arms of the Lord. And I need that!! Having a schedule gives me purposed time to get my work done and then ample time to study, journal, and pray in the quiet. I can spend time teaching my son and loving my husband without the constant chaos of unfinished jobs or a screaming toddler who's bored to tears.

What about you? How is routine a needful blessing in your life?