I've been giving some thought recently to how I seem to always be in the middle of something... of everything. I've got laundry half folded on the couch, dishes half done in the sink, lunch halfway through prepping, papers halfway sorted on the counter, homeschool stuff on the dining room table, toys all over the floor in the living room, the kids outside getting all muddy digging in the garden, my two year old running around in his diaper because he got his clothes dirty so he took them off, and the baby crying in the crib because she woke up and is ready for some lunch. And this seems to always be the time of day when my husband pops in from work for some lunch too!
Eventually some of these things get done through the day. But when I'm done fixing lunch and cleaning it up I'm already prepping things for supper. And when one load of laundry gets folded and put away. Another load is ready to come out of the machines to be folded too. And when I get a whole bunch of papers all sorted and put away more papers land on the counter for inspection later. The kids get through the bath and are clean and now the bathroom is in disarray. I just can't seem to catch a break! My husband can't understand it. He asks me why I don't finish one thing before I move on to the next. And don't I wish I could!
I've been really trying though. I try to pay attention to when the kids start to move on to something else, to send them back to clean up the original thing they were doing. When I start folding laundry, I try really hard to return to it right away even though I'm getting called away to change diapers, sort out disagreements, answer the phone and a whole slew of other things that are constantly demanding me to leave what I am doing to do something else right away. By the time I finish taking care of half a dozen things, most of the time I can't even remember what I was doing when I got called away the first time.
I really don't like drinking cold coffee so I try not to make the coffee until I've brought the house to a peaceful place so I can enjoy it, but usually I end up drinking at least the last half of it cold because in just a moment a peaceful house can turn into chaos if someone gets a bloody nose or throws up on the carpet or pees their pants or whatever else can go wrong that is bound to just when you think you'll have a moment to yourself!
I'm sure if you have small children you can relate to this sort of chaos that a mother is always trying to reign in. 1 Corinthians 14:33 "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace..." Shouldn't our homes radiate an orderliness and peacefulness, not chaos and confusion? I've got a long way to go to bringing this house into order. This is a challenge that I will probably never have brought to perfection, but I want to rise to meet it to the best of my ability. I know I can do better and with God's grace and strength I'm sure I have the ability to improve in this area.
No comments:
Post a Comment