The Summer "Schedule"

School's Out!  In some families that's cause for concern.  They wonder what to do with the kids for the summer.  Summer's our favorite time of year in the Marshall household, particularly this summer.  School's out in a different kind of way for us than ever before.  This year school is out for Abby FOREVER, at least "ordinary" school.  With her graduation last Friday, Abby moves on in her next step toward adulthood in the fall--college.  For now, though, instead of everyone getting up early in the morning so that Nancy can pack lunches and the girls can get showered and dressed, and I can go run and pray and stay out of the way, it's just me getting up to go run and pray and Nancy getting up to read her Bible and get her usual early start on the day's tasks.  The girls get to sleep in for the first couple of weeks.  Actually, Abby stayed overnight with some friends last night, and the night before it was the drive-ins with another group of friends.  She's working three days a week through the summer when her schedule permits, but she's fitting in two vacations, a missions trip to Mexico, and a missions trip to Louisiana, along with a summer basketball league where she will play with her college teammates from Seton Hill for the first time.  Emmy's schedule is basically the same, except that one of her vacations is different from her sister's and she'll be playing in the SAEBA youth league! 

With all that going on, one of the challenges is keeping God first.  I guess that's always THE challenge, isn't it?  Unless we schedule God in first, it doesn't matter what time of year it is other opportunities will shoe horn themselves into His time.  That's why I find it so important to get up to pray and run first thing in the morning.  Someone said that the best time to "tune" our "instruments" is before the "concert" begins.  Some of us aren't "morning people," but I find that when I put God first in my schedule--summer or otherwise--He tends to permeate my days.  Otherwise, I can get into the middle of a day and say, "Oh,oh!  I left God out.  Time to regroup."  About a month ago Nancy, Abby, Emmy and I sat down with our calendars to plan the summer.  We realized that as with every season the time is going to fly by.  All the more reason to schedule God in BEFORE the season starts.  That way when we look back at the first of September and reflect on "what we did on our summer vacation," God will have been in it--at the very center!