Momming Is Eternal

To the weary, tired, worn out, exhausted, frazzled mom, hang in there. You're stressed to the max and anxious about how your kids will turn out at the end of their youth with you. You cook three meals a day plus snacks. You grocery shop multiple times a week (most of the time with the kids tagging along) yet no matter how many trips to the store you take you always forget an important item.  You painstakingly wash load after load of clothes only to rewash perfectly clean ones the kids chose to play "musical clothes" with earlier. You refill the soap tray for the 3rd time that day on the same load because your brain can't seem to remember to switch loads into the dryer.  Then magically you find time to fold and put it all away.  Dishes pile up 2-3 times per day (or more if you've been baking). Once filled with delight that your sink is empty you turn and see stacks of pots on the stove. It never ends.  Oh now don't get started on the flooring! If you have babies, toddlers, or pets it's a continual cycle of sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, and stain removing!  You also scrub fingerprints from windows and table chairs, tend the flower beds, garden, and do yard chores. That's just the tip of the iceburg!  Are you tired just thinking about the daily home grind?  

That's just a little sliver of the home, not to mention if you're a working mom outside the house or if you have school drop offs and extra curricular activities. For myself I homeschool so every day I teach my children for many hours; listen to every question, fight, cry, giggle, and bodily sound; and attend to their every need 24/7. I get about 1-2 hours per week all to myself to shop in peace before having to come home to nurse the baby or simply be his person of choice to hug.

Is your life stressed and filled with daily things that just wear you out in the end? Why do we try doing it all only to hate our lives as we continually know it in the end? At the beginning of the day we worry and fret about the massive to do list. Isn't life so much more than this?  Shouldn't it contain more joy and more love for our family and jobs? 

What are ways that we compensate for longing for a more full and rich life as a wife and mom?  We add in fillers trying to occupy our days so we don't go crazy internally.  We go shopping, have friend dates, grab a fast food dinners, go to parks, have Bible studies, go on trips, get coffee with other moms, have lengthy phone calls, text anyone who'll text back, have spa days, online shop, read self help books, go to the gym or exercise group, landscape our yard, get our husband to do honey dos, binge Netflix, binge eat sweets, go for a run, take the kids to every sport and art group possible to fill their happy tank, you fill the blank______.  The list goes on to whatever it is that you personally do to fill your happy tank.  If you're doing any of the things listed above in addition to your already insane housework, jobs, kids' school lives, etc, then perhaps it's time to examine and remove all the empty fillers to give yourself a break.  Maybe it's time that you reign things back, giving your soul a break from all the stuff.  If you're stressed to the max it's time to remove the burdens.  Who cares if some burdens are kids activities and you make your tiny people angry....In the end they will get a happier mom and your quality time which far surpasses a fun moment in their already overly busy day.

"Now you are deep in what seems to me a peculiarly selfless service.  The spiritual training of children must be that.  You work for the years you will not see.  You work for the invisible all the time, but you work for the Eternal. So it is all worthwhile." 
--Amy Carmichael

Go make a list right now of all the daily NEEDS along with the daily added WANTS then chop out the junk that's weighing you down.  In the end your family needs a better you. Seriously, it's in the quiet calm moments of life when you have the energy to play with your kids, read to them, give Jesus to them!  Remember we are raising eternal souls.  They need Jesus not once, but every single day.  You do too mama!!  We all don't truly need the added stuff and activities to make us happy.

I encourage you to find joy in saying no to people and things.  Find joy in slowing down.  Find simplicity and retrain your mind to crave it.  


"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 2:6

"For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." Phillipians 4:11