Embracing Interruptions

Posted by Jamie | 0 comments

I like schedules. They make me happy in a strange list-making addiction sort of way. I know, I know: it’s a sickness! I’ve found that I’m not alone, though; many of us homeschoolers tend to be a little OCD that way. That’s often actually a good thing, as plans are essential to managing our homes and our homeschools.

But sometimes it seems as if my days are made up of more interruptions than anything else. These unplanned interruptions of my homeschool days can be anything from a business phone call to a stopped up toilet, from a child that wakes up not feeling well to a busted water pump in the car, or maybe it’s just the dog acting temporarily insane because the UPS man had the nerve to deliver a package.

Maybe we’ve been thinking of interruptions the wrong way.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” — C.S. Lewis

So according to Mr. Clive Staples Lewis, my schedules and plans are really just “a phantom of my imagination.” And those interruptions? Maybe they’re blessings in disguise.

• Maybe that sick child is overdue for a serious dose of snuggling and mama time.

• Maybe that business call will bring an exciting new prospect.

• Maybe that busted water pump means we spend the evening at home with the family instead of gallivanting about.

The stopped up toilet? There may not be anything delightful in that, but maybe it’s a great time to have a little life skills lesson in plumbing. {wink}

(And the momentarily crazed dog? I don’t know what lesson there is in that — except perhaps that I need to be more diligent in dog training, as well as child-training!)

Quite possibly the biggest lesson we can teach in all of these sorts of interruptions is this: they don’t have to ruin our day. Our kids need to see this lesson lived out on a daily basis. Just because things don’t go our way doesn’t mean we need to get upset. Instead, when plans don’t go as expected, we can teach them — and ourselves — to think, “I wonder what God is up to today.”

Life is full of the unexpected, and often in much bigger ways than just day-to-day interruptions: a husband’s job transfer, a surprise pregnancy, a death in the family… and so many more life events that have the potential to turn our world upside down. If we have learned in the day-to-day to embrace the interruptions of the life we would plan for ourselves, then the really BIG so-called interruptions won’t throw us for quite such a loop. Maybe even in those big things, we can learn to say, “I wonder what God is up to…” And if God does choose to turn our world, our family, or our homeschool upside down, we can be sure He is using it for good somehow.

Jamie is a wife, homemaker, home educating mama, adoption advocate, and professional photographer. Her blended family includes three kids: one by birth, one by marriage, and one adopted as a teen. She tries never to venture too far from a steaming hot cup of tea. Visit with her at See Jamie Blog!