Maybe Tomorrow

Note from Adrian: This is a guest post from a great blogger and mother named Melanie Dawson. Melanie is 32 years old. She plays several roles: during the day she is a special education teacher, and by night she is Super Mom! She has two Masters Degrees in education, and she absolutely loves what she does. Her role as Super Mom gets a little tricky sometimes. She has a 12 year old son, Sebastian, her daughter Tyler is 10, and little Mason is 5. They keep her going all day long, and she loves it!

You can follow Melanie on her blog, Penguins on My Shirt. 

(Want to write a guest post for Life Before the Bucket?) 

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Typical - that was my life.

I was married to my high school sweetheart, Mike, and together we were raising our three beautiful children. We both worked full time jobs, and took turns transporting the kids to their endless sporting activities. An hour each way for gymnastics twice a week, soccer, piano lessons, more gymnastics - every moment was scheduled. It felt like we were never home.

Family meals were often found at the bottom of a fast food bag, and homework was done in the car. We rarely took time for ourselves. Sure we took family vacations, and we worked hard to create memories with the kids, but we were young. We often joked that our time would come when the kids left the nest, then we would focus on us. Could we have been more wrong?

April 14, 2011 my life changed, and so did my priorities. I came home from work to find that Mike had passed away from a heart attack. He was 34. My husband, companion and best friend was suddenly gone. We had been together since I was 17, and it would have been our 14th wedding anniversary that year. How could it be possible that I was a widow at the age of 31? Gone were the tomorrows we had planned for.

Living life to the fullest no longer means that I try to cram my day full of more than it can hold. Instead, I give my kids more magic kisses than their little faces can hold.

It no longer means putting off until tomorrow the memories I want to create today. 

It no longer means putting myself after everyone else in my life. 

I now understand that I cannot be the mother I want to be if I don’t take time for me. There are fewer moments of “Wait a minute,” or “I can’t right now.” I try to stop what I’m doing to acknowledge every piece of artwork and every out of tune song. We take things slow, day by day, and sometimes moment by moment.

We still get caught up in the little things that don’t really matter when compared to the grand scheme of things; however, those moments are becoming fewer and fewer. My life is at its fullest when my kids wrap their arms around me and say…

“Mom, I love you. Real or not real?”

“Mom, I love you to infinity and beyond.”

“Mom, here are your magic kisses! They won’t ever come off!”

What could be better than that?

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Questions: What events in your life have drastically altered your priorities? What are you putting off until "tomorrow" that should be done today?

This guest post was part of a guest post series called "Living to the Fullest." Interested in joining in? I'm still looking for submissions! Just write up a post, or even just an idea, and e-mail it my way!

Win of the Week

It's Friday, Friday. Gotta get down on Friday...

The not-so-official Win of the Week mascot

Just kidding.

We don't do the Rebecca Black around here. Nope. We've got something much better up our sleeves.

Around here, we celebrate because we've been given the gift of another week passed. We celebrate milestones. We celebrate the insignificant, because we find it significant. We're sharing our win of the week.

This week hasn't been very exciting for me. Call it a post-birthday week letdown. Mostly, I've worked on our final Senior Paper, which seems like a big deal, but really isn't. And I suppose I've learned something from the experience, especially this week.

As I've watched people stress and fret over these passages of Scripture we're examining, I've found myself confused. Why are they stressing? What's to fret about? I see people staying hours and hours and hours on end in the library, only to take a stack of books home with them to work on. What's the point? Is that really living?

I've found that, though I'm not organized in most things, I seem to be able to organize my time well and not allow my schoolwork to bleed into my time to work out, eat, sleep, or be with my wife. These are all things that are higher on my priority list than our paper, and for that, I'm grateful.

So I'm calling this my win of the week. I've learned to be disciplined and not to overwork myself, and that's a skill that most people struggle to learn. Sure, we work, work, work. But what about rest? What about play? What about life?

I can only thank God that he's exposed me to an assignment this ridiculous so I can get my priorities straight.

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So what about you? What was your win of the week? Leave a comment that says "My win of the week was..." and it might just get shared on the Life Before the Bucket Facebook or Twitter page!

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Remember What's Important

Today is Monday, which usually means yesterday was Sunday.

And since yesterday was Sunday, that means a guy named Tim Tebow played a game called football. And whether he did well or poorly, people were talking about him yesterday and are still talking about him today.

Have you heard of him?

Well, it turns out he did pretty well yesterday. But I'm not here to talk about Tim Tebow. Nope. I've got something more important to talk about.

Yesterday, Tim Tebow won a football game. After the game, he's required to meet with the press, and he did so enthusiastically. I listened to him talk (because I'm an avid football fan - I can't help it), and I was amazed.

The kid is clearly in a little over his head. But what he lacks in age, he makes up for in charisma. Tim Tebow bleeds energy, and it's evident that everyone around him is better for that.

Again, though, that isn't what's important. I'm not here to write about Tim Tebow. Or football. Or whether God favors the Broncos (because he doesn't). In fact, allow me to use good ol' Timmy to illustrate what I do want to talk about. Check out this interview with him after the game yesterday (skip to 1:15 if you don't want to watch it all).

Did you catch it?

In the midst of all the football mumbo-jumbo and nose wiping, did you catch it?

Tim reminded us all of what matters, and it had nothing to do with football.

In case you couldn't (or just didn't want to) watch the video, here's what happened. A reporter asked him, "Do you have a sense of what kind of phenomenon you are nationwide right now?"

His reply?

I’m very thankful for the platform God has given me…

It’s special to have the platform of playing football because I have an opportunity to affect people.

I was very excited to have Bailey Knaub here at this game… Football is amazing, we love it, but the real win is being able to comfort a girl who’s gone through 73 surgeries before the game and get a chance to go hang out with her now. That’s the biggest win of the day, so they’re both exciting, but that’s what I’m even more proud of.

Though Tim Tebow just set all kinds of records and was being lauded by the press as a nationwide phenomena, he remembered what was important. He remembered that he was just playing a game, and that the game was just a platform for something greater - in this case, comforting a girl who's been through more than any of us can imagine.

But like I said, I'm not here to write about Tim Tebow. I'm here to write about me. About you. About us.

Guys, gals, friends, family, and foes - we need to remember what's important. To remember what the "biggest win of the day" is for us. We slave over our jobs and our hobbies, whether that's writing, being a full time stay-at-home parent, or working whatever hours Wal-Mart will give us, and most days (especially Mondays), we don't enjoy it much.

But this week, even if just for a single moment, let's remember what's important. Let's put what's given to us as our "platform" in its proper place and use it for what its worth, even if we don't enjoy it

And then, let's see what's important: the people around us that matter the most. The people crying and dying for help. That someone who needs a helping hand. And those other someones we maybe neglect more than we should.

If there's anything you do today, let it be this:

Remember what's important. And then do something about it.

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Questions:  What's your biggest win of the day? How do you remind yourself of what's important? How can you do something about that today?

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