A Change in the Routines

Routines are a way of life for most of us. Life can get very confusing and complicated when we step out of some of our routines. A few days ago my morning was anything but routine. The reasons are insignificant at this point but my regular pattern was altered. The result: because I cleaned my body in the shower before shampooing my hair - I forgot to rinse the shampoo out of my hair and had to enter the shower a second time; because I finished getting dressed before brushing my teeth, I forgot to brush my teeth; and because I left my watch in the kitchen the night before (of course, I had left it there while doing the dishes - my normal routine, but don't tell my wife that I wrote that), I forgot to put on my watch and so I spent the day with unbrushed teeth while looking at my naked wrist every 15 minutes or so.

Well, our home routines are about to make an even bigger change than the order of personal hygiene habits. Tomorrow is my wife's last day as an employed public school teacher. After 31 years of loving and molding and shaping the lives of 6 and 7 seven year olds and mentoring and encouraging fellow teachers, she is retiring. She is still very young (you can tell her that I wrote that). But she is ready for a change. That change may involve staying home some and taking it easy. It may involve some volunteering in the areas that she cares about deeply. And it may involve a part-time job in the future that doesn't require taking things home at night to have finished by the next morning.

I do know what changes are certain - (1) she will not be getting up at 5:00 AM; (2) she will not pity me as I leave for work and she stays home; (3) she will enjoy her new found personal time; and (4) she will miss seeing the bright eyes of children as they catch the excitement of learning to read (her special area for the last 16 years has been working with first graders who lacked reading skills and helping them "get it.").

But that is the way it is when we change our routines and begin a new direction. Some things end and other things begin. That is really the way life is in all of its aspects. Individuals, families, corporations, and churches - they all experience change in that way. To begin a new direction requires that an old path be abandoned in order to follow the new path. One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." In that poem the author comes to a place where the road he has been walking divides. He must choose which of the two paths now to follow. He knows he can only choose one. While he thinks he can always come back some day and try the other path, he knows that it will never happen. He finally chooses the path that seems less traveled and states that that choice has made all the difference.

Our family has a change in the routine because a choice has been made to travel a different path. It will make all the difference. Just wondering if you have any routines to alter, new directions to go, and choices to make!