Dear Sadie,
When you're at home, and your only job is being a housewife and mother, it's a little easy to be consumed by it. Okay, a lot easy. I mean, you are pretty much focused on these four walls and everything happening within them, or not happening, or what you're missing out on "out there." The meals, the discipline, the cleaning, the activities, the playing, the kid shows. You're hounded by questions all day long, "Am I teaching her enough?" "Is he getting enough attention?" "What can I get done in this little window of a break?" "How can I get my children to eat better? Eat more? Enjoy eating?" So much stuff to rattle the brain, and yet it's just the life you're living! There's very little escape from it though, and it consumes you if you're not careful. You don't have an hour lunch break to unwind. You don't have a 30-minute drive to or from work to gear yourself or unwind. There's very little time to gain refocus, pray, be separate of your "work" enough to recharge and re-energize.
I was thinking that this is like no other job in the world, yet it is just like every other job in the world at the same time. And for those who think it's not a job or work, they're just plain wrong in their thinking. I'll be nice. :)
It's like no other job because you are raising your own kids. No one can say that except an actual mom or dad who has chosen to stay home with their kids. (I actually don't think I chose this life; I pretty much think it chose me. I'm so glad though. As ambitious as I am, and as much as I loved teaching, I don't think this would have happened to me other than through circumstances. Thank you, Lord. One of these days I'm going to have to move on to another job, possibly even very soon, and I'm going to miss this blessing of a season.)
It's like every other job in the world, on the other hand, because everyone is tempted to think that what they "do" in life, mainly, their job, is what defines them. I think that is where the consumption comes in. That, and we expel so much of our time and energy on the "job," and leave so little else for anything else.
It's easy, for moms who stay home in particular, to lose oneself in the work. Kids take so much out of us. That, and we love them so much that we willingly give of ourselves to the nth degree, sometimes to an unhealthy degree. I've been aware of this for some time now, but still I've only been a mom just under four years. These are hard lessons to learn, and relearn: priorities...identity. I'm a child of God first; a wife second; a mom, third. How is most of me spent throughout my day? Mom first. I hate to admit it, but it's true. Mostly my intentions are good. But if I dwell in this place of exhausting myself for my family, and have nothing left to give the Lord, have I done anyone any good?
I can't tell you all the secrets, at least not yet. ;)
I sincerely hope I can live out the priorities I believe with my heart, Sadie. Keep me in line, will you? :)
Love,
Mommy
"You shall have no other gods before me" Exodus 20:3
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