I’m not one to enjoy a quiet moment. This happens for two big reasons. The first is that as a parent of three, there aren’t a lot of quiet moments to be had! Second is I tend to fill quiet moments with learning opportunities. That’s a whole post in and of itself, but today I want to share with you something I recently heard that will guide the next few Friday posts.

I’m pretty sure it was in a podcast I was listening to but I’m not sure which one. The speaker mentioned that as parents we do six things over time that yield specific results. Now these six things are ripped straight from this other speaker but the rest of the content will be my own. Just want to make sure to give credit as much as I’m able.

She was telling us in this podcast that parents need to more intentionally do these six things over the course of time so that we can have a greater and more intentional impact on the lives of our children. Here are those six things:

Love over time
Words over time
Stories over time
Work over time
Tribes over time
Fun over time

Each of these will be unpacked in subsequent posts but in this one I’d like to finish with the idea of over time. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we have limited time with our children. And when we realize this, we might take more seriously the time we do have with them. The estimated time we have with our children is around 940 weeks worth of time. That means that at this moment in time with my three children I have 536 weeks with my daughter and only 172 weeks remaining with my sons until they graduate. I’m not sure what happens after they graduate but what I do know is those 172 and 536 weeks are going to fly by!

So how do we more intentionally guard and steward these weeks over time. In the next six weeks we’ll look at each one of these over time areas and come up with some creative and concrete ideas to better use the remaining weeks – however many they are!

For now, take a moment and just put down your electronics. Sit down to supper with your family. Ask real questions. Start simple with what are your highs and lows today? Then move to something a little deeper. Where did you see someone doing good today?  Or perhaps How did you go out of your way to be kind today? 

Take full advantage of the remaining weeks. You’ll never get them back, so pour all you have into them. How will you spend your over time?