What’s really important???

This article below is copied from another blog I frequent.  I have had similar things on my  heart lately and I thought she said it perfectly!  

Don’t our kids deserve all of us?!?  Don’t our friends, family deserve our full attention?!?  Let’s focus on what’s really important.

Too Busy Texting to Parent

 

A beautiful blond headed little girl in a pink sundress ran ahead of us at the zoo.  She scrambled up the boards of the llama’s fence in the petting zoo area and grabbed onto the llama’s halter and looked as if she would climb right on that llama’s back as the llama struggled to get his mouth around to bite her tiny little arm off.  Thankfully, a woman standing nearby retrieved the little girl before the llama could defend itself.

and all the while her mother stood a few feet away…

texting.

At horse riding lessons I saw a similar sad, albeit less dangerous, situation.  Mommy spending the entire lesson texting while her 5 year old son learned to maneuver his steed.

This addiction can be seen in grocery stores, at stop lights, and in schools across America.

And restaurants?  Don’t even get me started.  It is beyond me how two people can go to lunch together and NEVER look up from their phones to have an actual conversation WITH each other.

Everywhere I look people are connected to their phones and disconnected from life around them.  And the worst of it is parents who are missing entire chunks of their children’s lives because of overworked thumbs.

It truly is an addiction.  An addiction that is stealing parents away from children and children away from parents.

But, lest you think I am writing this looking down my nose in condescension at texting mommies, I want to tell you there are plenty of things in this world and this life that will try to rob us of what really matters.  Texting is but one of them.

Our hearts, souls, and minds were created to worship.

We WILL worship whatever we focus on.

And yes, texting can be a form of worship.

A worship of technology.  A worship of being “on top of the latest news.”  A worship of the world.  A worship of self.

It is so easy to become immersed in the world of texting and facebook and emails and twitter and get caught up in just checking one more time, just sending out one more thing, just answering one more question.

We are afraid of missing something.  But the thing we are actually missing is much more important than what technology can offer.

We are missing life.

Real.

Abundant.

Beautifully colorful.

Life.

And children.

Children who are growing up without engaged, connected, focused parents are essentially being “left to their own” (Proverbs 29:15).

Please, mama…

Unplug.  Shut down the screen.  Shut off the phone.

You will not miss anything.

And what if you are the last one to know what was happening online while you were away?

How would what you missed (if you had known about it immediately) have enriched your life and your children’s lives?  Would one more hour, one more day, one more week really have made a difference.

My guess is

not really.

In fact, I would imagine if you totally unplugged forever you would not miss much.

Can you parent and be technologically savvy?

Sure.

But you had better be extremely self-controlled.

And you better be willing to step away from technology and be mom.

No gadgets.  No laptop.  No distractions.

Just mom.