I’ll admit it: I don’t particularly like being interrupted when I’m working on something I want to check off my list.

Perhaps I’m just not a very good multi-tasker…or perhaps I’m short on patience when it means sacrificing my own goals or agenda.

Whichever the reason, I felt God pushing into my heart, urging me to let go not long ago on one of those bizarrely summer-ish days when the sun tore through winter clouds and spilled over the brown earth. It was roughly 5:30 and I was in the middle of making dinner.

My daughter, who had been obediently tidying up her bedroom, came downstairs and joined me in the kitchen, looking at me like she just wanted my attention. Actually, she wanted…me. Not me distracted by vegetables that needed chopping.

I hastily tossed our (gourmet) dinner into the oven, adjusted the heat on the stove top, wiped my hands on a clean waffle-knit towel, and bent over the countertop.

“Do you want to go for a bike ride?” I asked. “Just once around the block before dinner?“

She couldn’t believe it.

I could hardly believe I was doing it either. I mean, there were beans and garlic bread to think of.

Yet when our tires rolled along snow-free pavement and we felt the chill of February stroking our cheeks, it was marvelous.

I looked at my daughter as we kept pace side-by-side. “So, sweetie…how was school today?”

Guess what: she chattered the whole way around the block. I got to hear about kids I didn’t even know were in her class. She told me about her friendships and the concerns she had about school. She bloomed.

It’s hard to drop everything in the middle of dinner prep when it seems so critical to be manning the stove and properly seasoning your proteins. It’s hard to divert your attention from something that the entire family’s counting on.

Yet that bike ride meant the world to my daughter that day, and it probably lasted all of 8 minutes.

8 minutes out of the 1,440 God gave me that day.

I think I have to be willing to let go more often and let the pieces fall where they may. I have to be willing to drop everything…but in the meantime, to gain more than I’ll ever be able to hold.

What memories have you made when you’ve dropped everything?