As Christmas draws closer and closer and my schedule gets fuller and fuller, I’ve been thinking about connection. While I try not use it as an excuse, I am a true introvert and would nine times out of ten prefer to be alone with a good book, a piano, or a typewriter. When I have so much to do, I wonder how much value I should put on connecting with friends. It could wait. It can always wait. But how much quality time will I miss if I wait? If I don’t bother putting in the effort to pour into others? Because truly, it isn’t about me. Connection with friends is about each other. It’s about helping others through hard times and being there when they need it, being able to stop what I’m doing and pray for someone because it’s been a rough week. At the same time, I don’t want to drain myself so much that I burn myself out. It’s a fine line I must walk, and that’s okay.
Where am I going with this? I don’t rightly know myself, but I’ll try to tie this all together somehow.
When I reach the end of my life, I don’t want to have spent valuable days, weeks, years on only myself when there were people hurting around me. I don’t want to look back at my life and think, “wow, I read more books than people I ministered to.” I want to connect with and pour into my friends. Now that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop reading. I will still need my days to myself and my “recharge time”, as it has been dubbed, especially when my favourite author’s newest book has just come out. But I will value others above myself.
