It's Been Awhile

I know it's been a while since I blogged. It probably will be a long time until I blog again! But I had some things on my mind, and in my heart today - and I needed a place to put them down.

I've been so challenged over the last number of months to tone down my life. I've probably felt this way for years, and it all started with me logging off of Blogger. At the time it was about survival. I had two kids, and hormones were causing my anxiety to sky-rocket. I was a mess. Along came Facebook, and I felt like I could now be a little more in touch with the world again - and yet not need to put aside hours of my day for blogging about every little cute nose twitch, or funny saying, or potty trained kid, or five word sentences. Facebook covered all that in, like, fifteen minutes of my day!

But I still feel anxious, discouraged, depressed, unworthy, ugly, and lazy. Skip forward to yesterday afternoon. Someone posted the following article as a link on Facebook (go there now and read it): http://powerofmoms.com/2012/04/your-children-want-you/

I LOVED this article. Thanks to social media, TV, and various other things, we as moms today are bombarded by opinions, ideas, and abilities to compare ourselves to. This is so unfair! What happened to the days of learning from our own mothers? Do you love your mom, and how she raised you? Maybe not. But I know one thing, my mom didn't keep tabs on her friends via Facebook, or get ideas from Pinterest, or search the web for ideas on "chicken". She just did her best with what she had, and what she knew. I don't want to get caught up in the comparing game - it only brings me down. I need to focus on doing things the way they work for ME and MY family.

For us that means that we will eat a lot of pasta. Yup, carbs. (insert fear-filled screams) Can you imagine what might happen to my kids if they eat pasta regularly? Or that they have real sugar sprinkled onto their cereal in the mornings? Or that I let them drink juice... UNDILUTED sometimes? I know. I should be stressed. But get this, there's more! I don't monitor the number of hours they watch TV. Some days it's zero, somedays its... lots. I don't run marathons, exercise (on purpose) every day, watch every single thing that I eat, or watch Dr. Oz. We have bad habits, and we're working on them. I've banned myself from a scale. I don't really care what number or letter appears on my clothes, as long as they fit and look nice on me. Some days I don't shower. James forgets to brush his teeth sometimes, and I only notice two days later. I gave my babies medication, in a proper dosage, when they had colds. I let Rayya sleep on her side from the day she was born. I often don't floss.

My to-do list for the day is going to come from God. He will let me know what I need to do, and how to do it, and I will have enough energy and ambition to accomplish ONLY that in my day. And right now that to-do list is this: be a mommy, be a wife, be a friend. That's it. It doesn't say: be a waitress, a cook, a cleaning lady, a saint, a missionary, a lawn care maintenance person, a model, a military sargeant, a plumber, a TV critic, a Kindergarten teacher, a craft maven, a seamstress, a doctor and a punching bag. All those things that are sometimes my self-appointed roles are not necessary. My kids just want me. That doesn't mean I'm on the floor playing Disney Cars and super heros all day. But I CAN, if I WANT to, even if that means I don't sweep up the crumbs from lunch under the table first. My kids will remember me, and not a ring around the tub. They will remember me, and not what I made them for lunch, but how I chatted with them while I made it. They will remember me, and not how much I exercised, but that I played tag with them. They will remember me, and not the dust bunnies that collected under the couch.

What IS important? What is my GOD-GIVEN to-do list? His yolk is easy, His burden is light. He will not give me so much to do that I can't do it. Now I just have to turn off, or tune out of all the other influences that make me think I have to be more. That I need to be cooking organic vegetables, doing yoga, fitting into a size 6, wearing jewellery even though I'm at home, and creating paper-maché forts for my kids. What I love about God's to-do list is that it doesn't say any of that. It just says, "be you".