21 | Change-Awareness Exercise

Here is a link to the message chaNges from March 1, 2015 if you want to play along.

chaNges | week1

Also, please use the comments to post your own experience with the 21 Day Change-Awareness Exercise (21DCAE).  Please know that I will do my best to pray over post and prayer request as we do this together.  Good luck.



Here goes.  Right now as I glance up at the clock it is 10:17PM and I can still hear voices whispering in the room that my oldest two boys share.  I put the 2 year old to bed at 8:30, but there is something about Sunday nights that always makes falling asleep difficult for the older two.  Already, I have experienced the hesitance that comes with doing this challenge online--but my goal is to embrace the change and share a little about my experience.

I love my boys desperately, but sometimes it seems that I let life, and specifically schedules get in the way.  There was a stretch just a couple of weeks ago where I missed 3 consecutive bedtimes with meetings at church and 5 out of 7 in one week.  And I love my mornings.  My wife gets the youngest one up and out the door 20 minutes before I have to get the oldest one up, fed, dressed, and ready to face the day.  It is temptingly easy to push that 20 minutes into 25 or even 30 as I enjoy a quiet cup of coffee and some time in the Bible.


To start things off, bedtime and mornings are where I am focused.  While unrealistic to expect that I can be home for every bedtime in the next 21 days--I don't have complete control of my schedule--I am committing to missing fewer than 1 per week or 3 total.  That means that I will be home at 7:30 for that time before bed.

In our house the morning routine truly sets the tone for the day.  If I am pushing, pushing to get the boys from bead to bus, there is no time to love on them.  The middle is the last one out the door and sometimes can struggle with his behavior in school--but the days that we can relax together and pray together as he stands with all of his winter gear on at the front door, those God-first days are the best. The mood, the demeanor is totally different.

This afternoon was a high-energy, cooped-up, ears-closed kind of struggle.  Lots of deep breathes.  Lots of "What is truly important?" moments.  The biggest thing in being a changed dad for me right now is setting expectations before hand, so when things do get out of control, my boys know the lines.  Wayne Gretzky had a great quote when asked what made him the greatest hockey player to ever play the game.  He said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been."  Anticipation, God is working on my parenting in how I anticipate.  Move out of the reaction and on to anticipation.

Well, now it is really late, but things seem to have quieted down.

Lord, bless the DeShaw boys and keep working a change in me.  Do whatever you need to in me so that you can do whatever you will with me.  Amen.