Adjusting My Priorities

By Jinny Davis

Texas, USA

Shortly after I started our family blog, I found myself spending all of my free time updating it and thinking about how to make it more creative or appealing. I spent a great deal of time reading others’ blogs too.

Within a few weeks, blogging had taken priority over my daily scripture study and other reading. I couldn’t concentrate while studying, I didn’t want to read as much, and I felt a lack of the Spirit in my life. I had less patience with my children, and the time I should have been spending with them, I was spending on the computer.

It wasn’t that blogging was inappropriate; after all, it is a great way to stay in touch with family and friends. But since I could feel my focus shift away from things that would give me a strong spiritual foundation, I knew something needed to change.

I started by admitting to myself that I didn’t need to blog every day and that I didn’t need to check other people’s blogs daily either. I decided I could still spend free time on the computer but only after I had finished my scripture study and other reading. By the time I got the most important things done, there usually wasn’t much time for blogging, but that was OK. I had reclaimed a lot of time—time that I was now spending caring for and playing with my children, reading, and studying.

After just a few days of adjusted priorities, I noticed that I was feeling the Spirit more abundantly in my life again.

I know that as I make a priority each day of doing what will benefit me spiritually, I will feel the Spirit more and more on a daily basis. I know that making time for studying the scriptures, reading Church magazines and other good literature, and thinking about things that matter eternally can help me be a better wife, a better mother, and a better member of the Lord’s Church.