Becoming Grown Up

I'm excited over something that many of you will chuckle at me about. I am not a morning person and in fact have been known to sleep through a number of meetings/snooze alarms in the past. However, this past year, I have been purposefully scheduling class and work for 8am in the morning to try and force myself to become "an adult." I am pleased to say that not only am I becoming more reliable about being up in the mornings, but I have woken up the past four mornings without the aid of an alarm clock (or before it went off). This is exciting to me as I have wanted to not waste a major part of the day by sleeping through it. This is the good side of becoming grown up for me right now.

Friday, Joanna and I went back to GA to spend time with her side of the family since her brother's fam (whom we haven't seen in about 3 years) would be there throughout this week. It was a blast swimming and playing with all our neices and nephews, catching up with my "in-law" brothers and sisters, riding with my father-in-law to pick up something and talking during this short ride, and in general being part of this family I married into [Hopefully, pictures will come soon- Joanna still has the camera and will be gone for at least another week, though]. Unfortunately, I had to leave this morning to make it back in time for work tomorrow and accomplishing all the studying I need done for my Greek class. As I was leaving, Debbie (my mother-in-law) said to me "We wish you could've stayed longer." And while she didn't say this with any kind of purpose in her heart other than just a simple wish to have me around more, it jabbed me a little because it seems like I've always been rushing off whenever I've been around the Deal family. Being a youth minister for four years did not lend itself to a lot of free time, being a current seminary student who is a study-aholic also restricts my free time, and knowing that I will be a minister in the future makes me a little worried that I won't ever have the time or take the time to spend with long-distance family. This is the bad side of becoming grown up for me right now.

Do you have thoughts on how to make family time better, more possible, etc, when you have a job that requires your presence during the weekend (i.e. the time when everyone else is off work)? I expect this will be a struggle throughout my life.