unfinished business

Right now, I probably have about twelve different “projects” that are waiting patiently for my undivided attention or my uninterrupted time, both of which are in rare supply these days.

I have a pair of knitted socks that were supposed to be a birthday gift for someone - only one sock is done. I have slate half laid out for a laundry room floor - mainly because I got stalled while trying to decide which direction to stagger the pieces. I have half a garden weeded, but that I’m blaming on mosquitoes. I nearly got carried away the other day after donating a half-pint of blood to the thirsty buggers.

There is a stack of magazines that I have (for two years now) intended to rip out pages of kitchen ideas, gardening tips, recipes or other inspirations for future projects (and so that I can get the pile away from my nightstand.) There are (well, I won’t even confess this number) tons of new books to read that I can’t seem to find the time for. Boy #2 got an ipod a month ago and I still haven’t loaded any songs from iTunes on it. I think he has actually forgot he even has it. It’s nearly July and I have yet to make new folders to file all of our 2009 paperwork.
To top it all off, my washer and dryer conked out on me two months ago. (You can only imagine the pile of clothes calling my name.) That problem cannot be resolved completely until the tile project is finished because hubby won’t let me buy new appliances until the flooring is done.

All of this adds up to unfinished business, and lots of it, in my life. Some of it irks me. Some of it stresses me out. Some of it, I’ve just plain given up on.

I sometimes wonder if I don’t have a slight ADD problem because it is very difficult for me to actually complete one thing before I move on to the next thing. Or before I HAVE to move on to the next thing. Then I realize that I’m a mother. In my world, motherhood equals a short attention span. There is no possible way to finish things when you have four kids (or probably any number of small children) at home. You are constantly being interrupted by requests for snacks, appeals to break up fights and those pesky meals that need to be prepared. Just when I get into a project like weeding, I’ll realize that it’s lunch time. Or rather I’ll be reminded by at least two carnivores that it’s time to eat. Then, after cleaning up all the crumbs, spilled water and cherry pits, I’ll get into, say tiling, only to realize that I should have started planning supper a half an hour earlier.
The interruptions are never-ending, which makes my unfinished business never-ending.

To be honest, it would probably be like this even in a kid-less world. I’d just find different things to interrupt me, like Facebook, coffee breaks and phone calls. Wait, I already do all that. The key, I think, is how I respond to the interruptions (and their end result.)

In his wonderful book, “The Rest of God”, author Mark Buchanan advises to “become hospitable to interruption.” I will never experience the possible blessing that God-ordained interruptions could hold for me if I get cranky about them or disregard them.

Sometimes those interruptions come in the form of flowering weeds. Sometimes from two boys with their fingers around each others’ necks. Or from another one, begging for animal crackers. And sometimes, it’s a phone call from a friend asking for prayer.

All of these interruptions will prevent me from doing whatever it was that I was doing. Temporarily. It is quite simply my choice as to whether I view them as intrusions or pauses. Buchanan advocates managing time less and paying attention more, drawing from Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90:12 - stopping to number our days aright. Or as the Message puts it: “Teach us to live wisely and well.”

A mother’s work is never done, but there will come an end to kissing boo-boos and making Play-do snakes. I choose to live wisely when I am unselfish with my time. “The world of the generous gets larger and larger while the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller,” says Proverbs 11:24. The tradeoff is that the unfinished business can seem to grow in direct proportion to the amount of time I redeem for interruptions. But according to Buchanan, a generous person will actually have more time because she will give herself first to God and then to others. Or perhaps she simply looks at her time as something to give rather than something to hoard. Or she considers reading about Little Critter more important than finishing a blog entry.

Some interruptions are God’s way of letting me know He’s got some unfinished business with me - business that can’t be completed if I ignore them.