Stewardship

Webster's Dictionary defines stewardship as "the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care." I have recently learned a very painful experience about that word.

After procrastinating updating my Money program with all of my recent purchases and paying my bills, I finally sat down to do one of my least favorite jobs (afterall it was in my chore pocket and I had to set a good example ; ) To my dismay, the program had somehow been updated and when I restored the backup file, I realized that I hadn't backed-up since the middle of April!! I had to go in and manually enter every purchase, bill and deposit in the last four months. It took me two days (with interruptions of course) of sitting at my desk tediously re-entering all that data.

You may be asking, "What does this have to do with inspiring children?" My reply, EVERYTHING!! I alluded to it in the post with my sis-in-law's beautiful shelves. If we are master of our stewardships, then we will be free to inspire our children and fulfill our missions. Tiffany Earl shared this concept in the LEMI Parent Mentoring Conference Calls I participated in last year. Our stewardships may include our bodies, time, home, finances, family (with all the different relationships), church responsibilities, etc. If we are out of control on these most basic areas of our lives, we will not be available to be instruments in God's hands.

So although it was painful to re-enter all of my financial information, I learned some very valuable lessons.

• I am out of control with my finances and I need to work on disciplining myself not only keeping track of what I spend but how I spend it!
• I have to get back to the basics--first things first. Imagine what I will be able to accomplish when I have my basic stewarships under my control and them not controlling me!
• When I don't carefully manage my stewardships, I lose valuable time. My husband played with the children while I finished updating Money last night. I could have played with them and created memories with my family.
• Whether I like it or not, my children are watching me. They see Mom freaking out about the hard job I made for myself because of my poor management.
• Last but definitely not least, I backup after every entry ; )

It gives me hope that God has entrusted me with the stewardships I have. That means He will help me and in the strength of the Lord I can do all things!