Let me backup a little bit and let you dive a little deeper into my thought process. Wednesday night I attended a class at my local church. One of the ladies pointed out a verse in the text that says "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admireable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me- everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you" (Phil 4:8-9). Then she commented that even watching the evening news is the opposite of this. I know she had no idea at the time, but that really convicted me. I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but I'll admit that it is almost always on. There is one thing I do try to watch every day- the evening news. I never really tried to figure out why I have to get my 'news fix' daily. But now I've come to realize that it is because I want see the day's drama. Another thing I do about twenty or more times per day is look at facebook. I don't post things twenty times a day, I just like to check on the day's drama. This is absolute craziness. It is, for sure, not focusing on anything "worthy of praise."
Another red flag went flying Thursday evening when I started crying because husband put one of my sweaters in the dryer. He was trying to help. I cried. I CRIED! That is craziness. Actually, it is exhaustion. Why was I so exhausted? Because I didn't have enough time. That is what I told myself, and I believed me. But God said "Be still. Know that I am God."
So Friday afternoon, I made a decision: No TV and no internet for the weekend. Surprise, husband! He could totally use the internet if he wanted to, but I asked him to please leave the TV off for the weekend. (Obviously we aren't NFL fans.) I'm thankful that my husband joined me in my desire to turn off the world and focus on our family. You know what happened when we turned off the world? I had time. A lot of time. I spent 3-4 hours in bed Saturday because I am fighting an illness (again) and I still had a lot of time.
We spent our time as a family building an awesome space shuttle out of 1200+ Legos. I read almost a week's worth of my One Year Bible. I sewed a really cute monkey place mat for G. I cleaned, cooked, did laundry, read some more, played memory, and still had more time.
Something else happened when we tuned out- I didn't miss it. We agreed to take a little time to glance at the internet Saturday night. I logged on to facebook and immediately started filling up with negativity. I think husband looked at Legos for sale. I was ready to turn it off pretty quickly. We also agreed to turn on the football game this evening for a short time. We didn't watch it. Instead, G watched Clifford for a little while and we called it a night for the TV. I'm happy that it remains off. New rule for our house- no TV or internet one day a week. You should totally try it.
