We are all currently on a stay home order. My city has at least until the end of the month, another three weeks. I have seen countless social media posts of just how bored people are. Even those working from home and those with kids are finding that they have more time on their hands than they know what to do with. Today I want to share eleven things to do while staying home.
Start a daily habit of prayer. Spend time thanking God for all He has done for you. Lift up your needs. Then, lift up the needs of others. Consider doing a prayer walk around the perimeter of your home or even your neighborhood.
Start a daily habit of Bible study. Read the Word then use your Bible’s cross reference to dig even deeper. Journal what God reveals to you. You can also read devotionals, just remember to measure them against the Word of God.
Write the Word. Cultivate What Matters has beautiful Write the Word journals. These journals offer a Scripture prompt for you to write out and space to write a prayer or your thoughts. There is something very powerful about writing the Word in our own messy handwriting!
Send cards. Send cards or hand written letters to family and friends. Ask them how they are doing, share something about your life that you don’t share on social media, and pray for them. It would be a blessing to get something personal and uplifting in the mail at this time!
Video chat. Schedule a video chat tea or coffee date. Use apps like FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, or Facebook Messenger. Video chats can be a fun way to catch up "face to face."
Take a trip down memory lane. Watch old home movies and eat popcorn. Have an in home date watching your wedding video and dancing in the living room to your wedding song.
Pick that favorite hobby back up. If you haven’t had time for playing your instrument or knitting or whatever your hobby is, pick it back up.
Teach your kids life skills. Teach them how to do laundry, cook, mow the lawn, all those things that will benefit them in life. If you have teens, work on balancing a checkbook or changing the car oil.
Ride a bike. My husband bought us bikes and every day we go on a short bike ride before dinner. It’s wonderful to get out in sun and get some exercise.
Do a family activity. Read a classic book together, one chapter at each meal. My family loves Black Beauty, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Anne of Green Gables. Or work on a puzzle together or start a scrap book together.
Be bored! We live in a time where we are constantly being entertained. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and more. We pick up our phone and mindless scroll through every single chance we get. It's okay to be bored. It's okay to have nothing to do. Intentionally set the phone and other devices aside for a little bit each day and just be. Even if it's only ten minutes! Sit on the front porch and just watch the clouds roll by. Swing in the hammock. Rock in the rocking chair. Look out the window and watch the birds. We always complain that we are so busy, now we have time! Time to just be. These little bits of just being, they refresh us, energize us to keep going, and they help us to be silent and hear God.
Start a daily habit of prayer. Spend time thanking God for all He has done for you. Lift up your needs. Then, lift up the needs of others. Consider doing a prayer walk around the perimeter of your home or even your neighborhood.
Start a daily habit of Bible study. Read the Word then use your Bible’s cross reference to dig even deeper. Journal what God reveals to you. You can also read devotionals, just remember to measure them against the Word of God.
Write the Word. Cultivate What Matters has beautiful Write the Word journals. These journals offer a Scripture prompt for you to write out and space to write a prayer or your thoughts. There is something very powerful about writing the Word in our own messy handwriting!
Send cards. Send cards or hand written letters to family and friends. Ask them how they are doing, share something about your life that you don’t share on social media, and pray for them. It would be a blessing to get something personal and uplifting in the mail at this time!
Video chat. Schedule a video chat tea or coffee date. Use apps like FaceTime, Zoom, Skype, or Facebook Messenger. Video chats can be a fun way to catch up "face to face."
Take a trip down memory lane. Watch old home movies and eat popcorn. Have an in home date watching your wedding video and dancing in the living room to your wedding song.
Pick that favorite hobby back up. If you haven’t had time for playing your instrument or knitting or whatever your hobby is, pick it back up.
Teach your kids life skills. Teach them how to do laundry, cook, mow the lawn, all those things that will benefit them in life. If you have teens, work on balancing a checkbook or changing the car oil.
Ride a bike. My husband bought us bikes and every day we go on a short bike ride before dinner. It’s wonderful to get out in sun and get some exercise.
Do a family activity. Read a classic book together, one chapter at each meal. My family loves Black Beauty, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Anne of Green Gables. Or work on a puzzle together or start a scrap book together.
Be bored! We live in a time where we are constantly being entertained. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and more. We pick up our phone and mindless scroll through every single chance we get. It's okay to be bored. It's okay to have nothing to do. Intentionally set the phone and other devices aside for a little bit each day and just be. Even if it's only ten minutes! Sit on the front porch and just watch the clouds roll by. Swing in the hammock. Rock in the rocking chair. Look out the window and watch the birds. We always complain that we are so busy, now we have time! Time to just be. These little bits of just being, they refresh us, energize us to keep going, and they help us to be silent and hear God.
There are so many things to do. What would you add to the list?
It's time for Share A Link Wednesday! Each Wednesday we invite you to leave a link to your latest blog post in the comments. We still desire to connect women of God with one another and encourage each other in Christ. So grab a cup of coffee or glass of sweet tea, sit back and visit a few blogs. Be encouraged and share your own stories.
I love your comment to just be bored. I have wished before that my life was boring. I love to just sit on my front porch and listen to all the sounds of nature. Right now because most of us are staying home, the country sounds even sweeter without the roar of vehicles going by. I wrote this week about explaining these crazy times to our kids, http://keepingthetiethatbinds.com/2020/04/08/explaining-these-times-to-our-kids/
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I love this list of 11 things we can do during our stay at home time!
ReplyDeleteThis week, we're featuring the third in our series of three small books. These are great! https://www.instaencouragements.com/blog/a-small-book-about-a-big-problem
Great advice. Somehow I'm not experiencing these great increases of time everyone else seems to be talking about--maybe because I'm usually home anyway, but now my husband and son are, too. So I'm a little more distracted, even though they're working from home in different rooms.
ReplyDeleteI wrote this week about parallels between our current situation and that of a missionary family in China as the Bamboo Curtain fell in the 1950s. They were basically confined to their homes for over two years. I pulled some things from their story that might help us: https://barbaraleeharper.com/2020/04/06/coping-and-ministering-in-isolation/.