Hey everybody...It's been an interesting week to say the least! You always have an opportunity to teach your children, especially in circumstances like we have had recently.
Some of you still might not have power, but I think most of us experienced at least a little bit of electricity-less life in the past few days. Steph and I got to thinking about our time in the dark for a little while on Sunday and thought how nice it was to have nothing distracting us and sucking away our time and attention.
When the power is on, we have television, computers, cell phones, iPods, video games, and movies to distract us from God and from each other. The more people you have in your family, the more profound the impact of electricity is on the dynamics of your home. Each of your children has any number of things that can suck them in and draw their attention from life's more important concerns. And over time, we let electricity and gadgets run our lives instead of running them!
Wasn't it nice--after your kids, or maybe you yourself, stopped complaining about the power being out--to just relax and talk. Steph and I got to have a 45 minute conversation with our neighbors who we'd said probably ten words to in three months. We got to play board games with each other and just relax. I even thought of someday, when we have kids, having an intentional power outage occasionally. I think I'll just flip the circuit breakers, confiscate all phones, and have us do something fun together.
Make sure that as a parent you are teaching your children (and modeling by your own example) how to run their life--and not be run by technology. Help them evaluate what is truly important and worthwhile. Make them spend time with each other and just enjoy living together simply. It's a shame that so much of our kids' childhood years are now spent "connecting" with the outside world, while they are distracted and distanced from the people within their very own homes!
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