Pet Peeves to Think About

Pet Peeves

The other night I nudged my husband in bed who was asleep (I think we’ve all done this!) and said “are you awake?? Well of course he was by then, so I said to him, “you know what my two biggest pet peeves are?” There was a pause….What? “He said”. He knew it was coming and I said, the use of the word “busy” or maybe I should say the misuse of it and people who send us Christmas letters full of how busy little Jimmy and Sarah are and all about how they are doing and their many activities during the year, and then close with Merry Christmas from the so and so’s without ever even asking you how YOU are doing! It’s not that I don’t care, it just would be nice to get calls or contact through the year rather than just dumping it all in a letter because it’s Christmas. I don’t do Christmas letters, but I told my husband we should have written a Christmas letter 2 years ago that went like this:

Dear friends, Merry Christmas! What a year!! This year my husband lost his job, was out of work for more than a year, we had a lousy Thanksgiving, the dog died the next day and we couldn’t decorate the home for Christmas because it was up for sale. We moved 6 times before getting finally settled, our child changed schools 4 times, BUT ultimately God has been good to us. And God IS good. But I must say in all of this I never felt an overwhelming sense of busyness during all this change, so was I not busy? Why? I don’t know?

Okay, I said it. Those are my biggest pet peeves! Other than the person in the restaurant who stirs their sugar in their iced tea clinking his glass for 5 minutes or more…and you know who you are!

I asked my husband this same night are we not busy enough? What more should we be doing? I do believe there is too busy and too little busy but what is that Goldilocks’ and the Three Bears just right feeling?

In essence there is absolutely nothing wrong with being busy and having a busy life or family. I guess one thing that bothers me about busyness is that some people have somehow made this a word of status: I am “busy” therefore I am “more important”. I can’t spend time with someone because I’m “sooooo busy”! Our days are spent…..we just have NO time because we are just “so busy”. Okay, so if I’m not as busy as you am I less important? The busier you are the more important? I want to explore this further and see what Jesus thinks about this. Because when he came to this earth He had a lot to do and it says in the New Testament that if every thing was written in which he did while on earth that the books of the earth could not contain it. WOW! THAT’S BUSY!!! But he never wiped his brow with utter exhaustion and said “Oh, I’m just so busy.” He just took care of the matters at hand.