Time spent with my family is one of the things that I value most in my life. Date nights with my husband, family vacations, having everyone around to participate in holiday traditions, family dinners or simply having a conversation with any one of my kids are moments that I will treasure always.

Something else that I really enjoy is going places and doing things with my kids and our friends. Even though most of our trips are educational outings, they are an absolute blast! I love our field trips and spending time with this tribe of people. Walking through New York city, going to famous places like Niagara Falls and Colonial Williamsburg, seeing historic battlefields or simply hiking through the woods – these are all wonderful times spent with great friends! We also spend a lot of time together during the summer. We take trips to the beach, hang around the pool and serve together at the facility where our kids work and go to camp.

I also really like to watch my favorite television shows. I don’t like just one particular genre. I enjoy a wide variety when it comes to being entertained this way. Doctors and hospitals, super heroes, law enforcement, music competition and even a little sci-fi. Don’t worry – I’m still over here raising and schooling my kids. Actually, I watch most of the shows on my phone while doing other things. I never watch during school hours and its usually when I am cleaning or cooking dinner. Either that or I watch at night just before going to sleep. There are some really great shows out there!

Unfortunately, another one of my favorite things in life is food. I have a love/hate relationship with delicious food. I love to eat sweets – especially chocolate – but sweets do NOT love my body. Or, maybe they love it too much, because they tend to stick around a lot longer than I would like, and in all the wrong places. On the other hand, I also love a lot of really healthy foods. One of my favorite things to do is to come up with recipes incorporating my favorite vegetables. Whether its healthy food or junk food, I love good food!

Another thing that I would say I am passionate about is music. I love to sing. I always have. Music has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. For a time, I had to take a break from being involved in any kind of singing group due to family responsibilities. I am so excited, because I just joined the worship team at my church, and I am now able to sing with this group often. Knowing that my kids all love music and have been blessed with musical talent makes me super happy too. There’s not much in this world that can give me chills faster than hearing my kids harmonizing together. Music is ever present in our house.

There is one other aspect of my life that I absolutely must talk about when it comes to things in my life that I love. My relationship with God would be first and foremost in the order of importance. My quiet time every morning, time spent in prayer, praising God through music, being taught truths from our pastor in church and being in fellowship with other believers all play a huge part in making me who I am today.

So out of all of these things, if I were to pick one that consumes me constantly and fills my thoughts more often than not, which one would it be? I wish that I could say without missing a beat that it was my relationship with God. That is truly the desire of my heart, that God would consume all of my thoughts, my actions, my words and all that I am. If I am being completely honest, though, I struggle with letting some of these other areas crowd Him out.

There are times when being a wife and mama to my crew feels like the most important thing that I could ever have in my life. I mean, what could be more important than having a life with the man I love while raising and schooling ten beautiful children? Or how about hanging out with my friends and making amazing memories with all of our kids while encouraging each other? Sometimes, I allow selfish desires to creep in, and I find myself lost in a bowl of delicious ice cream while binge watching my favorite shows.

I don’t believe for even a second that any of these things are more important than God. I could rationalize and tell you that all of these things are gifts from God and that I am simply enjoying His gifts to me, but that wouldn’t get to the heart of my problem. I believe that, like a lot of Christians, I tend to see my relationship with God in a distorted way. I see it as me trying to keep Him in the center of my life and allowing all other aspects of my life to revolve around Him. Since the Bible says that Christ in me is the hope of glory, that’s not a bad thing, but when I think of my relationship to him in this way, it could also look like me trying to keep God in a box. The box represents my life, and that, to me, seems like I’m trying to control the relationship between me and God. With myself in control, its way too easy to allow God to be bumped out of the center by all these other areas vying for my attention.

So how do we as Christians keep God as the main focus of our life? How do we keep all these other things that we love from creeping in and taking the place of the One who created us to worship Him? Do we need to give up all the things besides God that bring us pleasure in life? I don’t think so. A lot of these things are mentioned specifically in the Bible as gifts directly from God. “Children are a gift from the Lord…” Psalm 127:3. “Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.” Psalm 98:4. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” Psalm 133:1. “For He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:9.

Perhaps a better way would be to change our perspective on the way that we view our relationship with God. Rather than seeing it only as God being “in our lives”, and us needing to keep Him at the center, maybe we should think more about ourselves as being “in Him” and allowing Him to permeate every single area of our lives. That way, it will be Him controlling all the other areas of our lives that try to consume our thoughts. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Ephesians 2:10. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.”For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” Galatians 3:26. “In Him we live and move and have our being…”Acts 17:28

“Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5