It's...elemental...

I suppose for most of us, life really never does settle down. We just replace old crazy with new busy and it all keeps cycling through. We may have some slow times, but it never really stays that way. I have had an exceptionally busy last couple of years. In that time we have had a lot of stress, and over the last year it's been hard to keep our family unit defined.

The more nuts life seems to be, the more I get into a rut of self condemnation. I hate the feeling of not getting things done, and not doing all things I need to do as well as I would like. Something is always suffering.

For me, it helps if I can just get back to basics. What am I doing every day? Well, since I currently don't work outside the home, home is my priority: my kids, keeping up the house, helping my husband.  And really, aren't these what I want to be priority anyway? Start at the core, then work out.

As we are doing our science lessons this week, I see it again. The atom. The smallest unit of matter. At it's core, the nucleus. The protons make it what it is. Only Carbon has six protons. Any more or any less, and it's not Carbon. My family, with Jesus at the pure center, is my nucleus. We are this family, and anything different isn't us.

The electrons are racing around in shells in a crazy extra-nuclear orbit. They zip at nearly the speed of light. The further from the nucleus they are, the fast they go.

 Ahhhhh...... I'm seeing it now.

I am more hurried, more wild, more likely to fly off and bond with something else, when I get further away from my core.

So, when I am fraying at the ends, and I am failing my own standards yet again, I guess I should see where I am at. Am I starting with the center, or am I looking to share electrons with that exciting situation over there? Folks didn't circle the wagons just for fun. Protecting your center is important.
I feel like God wants me to focus on this. He can always hand me more later. But I should be good at this before I should want to take on anything else. It's elementary...