Recently I was bemoaning the fact that because I had been focusing my time and energy on my business, work and my children’s athletic pursuits, I haven’t focused enough energy on homeschooling. I confess that I haven’t checked quite a bit of their work and I haven’t been making sure they do their chores up to their capabilities. In short, things are falling through the cracks.
In my business I’ve been hard at work developing the group mentoring program, and encouraging the women who have signed up. As a result, I haven’t posted much on my blog.
So I decided to talk to my life coach about it.
She said, “Your ducks will never be all in a row. That keeps us relying on God.”
Of course I knew this, but I thought perhaps there was some time management “trick” or something that I was missing. Later that day, I thought about it more and had a aha moment.
Pick your ducks. Do your best with those. And trust God to take care of the other ducks.
What I mean is that we’re human and we have a limited amount of time and energy. We cannot do everything we want to do or that we’re “supposed” to do. So we must decide which ducks are most important to us in this season of life (and daily). For me it means, supporting my kids athletic talents is more important than reading all of their writing assignments—at least for now. Track will be over in a month and we can pick up the things we’ve neglected if we choose to.
The point is this: Everything you want to get done won’t get done. Something will be sacrificed whether you choose it or not. We must be intentional about choosing what will get sacrificed. I’ve found that when I’m not intentional I usually sacrifice my sleep, my sanity, my dreams, my husband and anything else that isn’t screaming to get done.
All around us are people telling us which duck we should be focusing on. Have a date night every week with your husband. Spend time alone with each kid everyday. Cook a healthy meal for your children. Stop eating sugar. Get out of debt. Organize your home. Read good books to your children. Teach them Latin. Volunteer at your church or other organization. Give your hair a hot oil treatment. Etc, etc.
What you and I need to do is to turn off the voices, get alone with God and listen to the desires he’s already placed in our hearts. What do we long to do? What’s really important and why is it important? What are the values of your family? Pick the duck. Focus your energy on those ducks. And let God take care of the other ducks –WITH NO GUILT.
Your ducks will be different from someone elses ducks. Some may look at you sideways because of the ducks you’ve chosen. That’s their problem, not yours. And I warn you not to look down upon those who’ve chosen differently from you. That’s not your business! You have enough work to do managing your own ducks. 
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