Note: This is a four-year-old post! Hope it gives you some good things to consider. Take care! xo
Summer is winding down, and I hope it has been a good one for you! I can feel the energy growing for school shopping, sign-ups for football and piano lessons and, and, and…! While you’re in the midst of this gear shifting, please consider these words, profoundly placed on a bumper sticker I saw probably 20 years ago…“The problem with life is that it’s so daily.”
What does this have to do with fall time? It seems to me (from my personal experience) that when we think of a new schedule or about what time our children have for extra activities or what time we have to accomplish x, y or z, sometimes we forget that what it takes to live healthfully, takes time too!
By this I mean, we were created to need to eat multiple times a day, right? (Did I just hear someone with dishpan hands moaning? I know, I know, dishes are soooo “daily”!) Not only that but we were created to need regular rest periods, light, exercise, connections with others, belonging to a family culture, etc.
The problem that seems to eventually throw a stick in the spokes of our finely tuned schedules is that we really didn’t factor in these realities of living….that we have to eat, rest, play, move, breathe fresh air and belong.
So we’ve usually planned in the lessons and the work hours and the school hours and the sports hours, but how about the cooking hours? The planning-the-menu and the resting time? When we don’t plan to take time to do the basics (cooking, shopping, eating, resting, cleaning etc.) we set ourselves up for serious frustration! And contention. And malnutrition.
And as we see in our country, obesity and ill-health.
There’s a secret you learn after so many years of being a mom: It is that all of the things that we do to keep ourselves healthy and enjoying life can actually be enjoyable and health-promoting in and of themselves if we have given ourselves the time to do them.
I mean, growing your own vegetables is a treat…when you have the time to do it and it’s not an annoying job crammed in the holes of an already over-scheduled day. There is something so renewing about being in the dirt, pulling weeds, watching plants maturing, breathing in fresh air and feeling the sun. Then there’s the feeling of feeding your family produce that is free of pesticides! It is amazing!
As a young mom I just couldn’t resist taking pictures of freshly baked bread (probably because it took me so very long to make a decent looking loaf!) or of beautiful orange and pink peaches in jars. Nature is so beautiful and being a part of it is rewarding beyond anything I know.
Maybe the biggest issue with all of this “daily living” centers on what you believe is worthy of your time. What validates you as a person and as a mother? What influences are weighing most heavily on you that may keep you from feeling that the art of living a rich and full life with your family may not be enough? That YOU may not be enough if you don’t have more to report about your afternoon than, “today I taught my three-year-old to pull weeds and we ate fresh tomatoes on the back steps for lunch?”
I want to encourage you to weed out the pressures and influences that may be causing you frustration and discouragement. There is nothing you will do in this life that trumps the meaning and fulfillment of being a mother. If you can, why not slow down, UNDER schedule, and love the things that living requires?
Yep, we can live on frozen food and adrenaline pumping schedules…but not for long and not well.
And we miss so much during a moment in time that we won’t be able to call back later. After all, life is a long time, God-willing, and there will be time for many other pursuits…
Mothers, you are needed. Your role in the family and in society is crucial. You cannot be replaced by anyone else. Your love, your smile, your time, your face, your laugh…make up the memories of home, of belonging and of being loved. Is there really something more important than that? Within the array of choice that you have in your life, about how and where you spend your time, is there room for slowing things down, breathing a little easier and living a little more?
My hope for all of us is that when we turn and look back over the years of our lives, we will see the fruit of our family labors and have great joy in the harvest!
I send you my vote of confidence that you are enough. And you can do this.
Love,
Jacque
I’m going to be studying and pondering this as I look at this next year. Thank you for re sharing this! I’m so grateful for how Lioness has already helped me – now to stay the course while figuring out how self care figures into all of this without taking it too far +thinking of musical and personal goals. Lots to ponder and pray about.
Every time I approach this task of reaching out to you, I have a prayer in my heart to say something of value. I’m so excited for your amazing work and watching you use your abilities to create health and comfort and challenge and growth at home is inspiring to me! I have great confidence that you will stay your course and make a grand work of it! xo
I LOVE THIS! And when everyone pitches in to do chores and weeding and canning, it can be FUN, instructive, and take the load off just one person.
Oh, that is so true! And it seems that half the battle is for Mother to just stay in a positive frame of mind and not get critical or negative in order to rally the ranks! Heaven help us all, such self-development needed to be up to this task! xo