Who's the Busiest?

I can't believe that it's been over a month since my last blog post.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record...I've been busy.  I haven't blogged mostly because I haven't had much time to blog but also because I feel like I would just say the same old thing...busy, busy, busy.  I read something on FB, I think it was a quote from some kid to her mom...something about, when did being busy become a competition?  It does feel like that sometimes, like we feel more important when we are busy, or we want some sympathy for being so busy.  I say "we" but I actually should just say, "I" because I know I feel that way but it may be presumptuous to think others feel that way.  I am doing a new Bible study by Priscilla Shirer called, "Breathe," and it's all about adding some margin back to our lives.  She specifically speaks of a Sabbath margin.  Through some of the questions and readings, I have come to realize that I find much of my value and self-worth in how busy I am and how productive I am.  Someone said to me this summer that I had way more time than they did so that was why I could spend time doing something that this person said he/she just didn't have time for.  I was actually quite offended that this person thought he/she was busier than me...or that I had so much more time for leisure.  I should not have been offended though, I mean, this isn't a competition.  I imagine that a lot of working people must think I have so much more time than them and I probably do because I don't go to a job for 8 hours of my day.  In reality...homeschooling and taking care of a home and running kids around and tutoring manages to keep me incredibly busy with no real boundary between work and down time.  I have to create the down time or it just doesn't happen...since I live at my job and there is always one more thing to be done.  I haven't been doing a good job of applying what I'm learning in Bible study because I have been running non-stop for the last couple of weeks--staying up late, using every minute of the day to check one more thing off of the list.  And, guess what...the list is never fully checked off.  As soon as one list is completed, another list is being made.  It's exhausting and I have to learn to relax.  I spent 15 minutes (I set a timer and looked at it 4 times) doing nothing today as an exercise in forcing myself to stop.  I turned the ringer off on my phone and everytime I started thinking of what I had to do next I forced myself to let it go and just breathe and pray and worship and just be.  It was a long 15 minutes but it felt good.  I have so much room to grow in this area of my life, so much to learn but those 15 minutes today were a good start.  One thing that is for sure is that the to-do list will actually never be completely done so I need to learn when to just stop and rest and let some things go.