Monday Motivation: Sleepwalking through Time

Before I had kids, I was a heavy sleeper. I slept through thunderstorms, tornado sirens, even a house alarm. One of my first jobs out of college was teaching at a school for foster students. I lived with a friend until I could find my own apartment. Around five o’clock a.m., her house alarm screeched through the silence of the early morning hours for several minutes while she made sure we weren’t being robbed! Her two labs and my Golden Retriever were terrified of the high-pitched shrill. They barked until a fight ensued among the dogs, my Golden being the odd man out. By the time the alarm stopped, my big guy was banned to the garage for his misbehavior! Where was I, you might ask, during the loud commotion? I slept through the entire event! I missed what was happening right in front of me.

Many of us are in such a hurry to move on to the next season in life, we sleepwalk through time without learning the lessons set before us. When we’re young, we want to be older. When we’re older, we want to be young again! Before the pandemic, I often said, “If only I had more time.” Then, when forced to quarantine, I had more time than I wanted! Isn’t that how it always is? It’s hard to enjoy what’s right in front of us. Singer/songwriter, Thomas Rhett, wrote about the desire to be anywhere but in our current state. His song “Sixteen” pens it perfectly.

“What I wouldn’t give to be sixteen, wild and free, Cruisin’ up and down Main in my F-150… What I wouldn’t give to be eighteen… What I wouldn’t give to be twenty-one… Now I’m twenty-five and I’m drinking wine with my wife at home…we sit around and we laugh about how we used to be, when all we cared about was turning sixteen.”

The writing process is very similar. We write a book, then spend every waking hour thinking of the moment we are published. We miss everything in between because we want to be at the next level. Don’t misunderstand me—it’s great to have motivation and goals, but do you pause during each season to learn from the events and circumstances right in front of you?

Enjoy the moment you write “The End”. Relish in the praise and congratulations from friends and family for completing a book. Learn from each rejection rather than letting it get you down. Complete the suggested rewrites, savoring the positive changes you’ve made to your manuscript.

Whenever you share your story, you can look back at each season and see what was right in front of you, what you learned, and how you wouldn’t trade those moments for the busyness of life. Those character-building opportunities are now permanently weaved into your story of life.

When you share what made you successful, you can tell others not only about the pats on the back, the rejection letters, and the endless edits, but what you learned from all of it. Has God placed you in a season of life you can’t wait to leave? Stop, pray, and ask God what He is trying to teach you. Then, rejoice when He allows you to move on, knowing you’ve accomplished a great work. “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished…” Philippians 1:6, NLT

Songwriters: Joseph Michael Spargur / Sean Douglas / Thomas Rhett

Sixteen lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Photo credit, Aaron Burden on Unsplash