Journal Entry January 24, 2011

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. – J.R.R. Tolkien

What do I do with this time I’ve been given?

How can I be a good steward of my time?

I must learn how to budget my time like I need to learn how to budget my finances because I am called to do both. I am learning how I can best use my time to the best of my ability. I am learning how to focus.

TV off. Internet closed.

Computer’s only function: play music.

For the last week I’ve been intentional about having my TV shut off by 9 pm (although tonight it was off at 8 pm) so that I can spend time focused on the Word or other tasks I want or need to do. It doesn’t get me to bed faster but it is causing me to focus on what I’ve put off doing.

Procrastination is not my friend. But it has become my companion unfortunately. Because I don’t want to deal with the hard stuff. I don’t want to look at my “demons”, my inadequate parts – that which falls short of the woman I have been created to become.

Because to face that would mean pain. It will – and does – hurt to look in the mirror and not see who I am called to be looking back at me. She is not who I was but she’s not who I am supposed to be either.

She falls short every day. But I’m seeing a gradual change. A maturing. It’s not outward (at least, I hope not) but it’s in the Spirit. It’s in the Soul. The Spirit changes first, then the Soul. The heart changes in the process of it all.

Brother Barry mentioned in Sunday School yesterday about how it’s not the memories of our past, before our coming to know Jesus, that cause us to fall and falter, but the scars they leave behind.

The scar tissue is hard. It’s not pliable like flesh. No, it can’t move easily like the skin we wear. It can cause other areas to be hindered, too.

But if there is therapy, it can be softened. The Great Physician can soften those places and then take His scalpel and remove it when the time comes to completely remove it. But it is only when we submit to His counsel, His healing process that He will go in and remove it because God will never force His children to do what they do not agree to do. He will not force Himself upon us.