God's Call. Missions. Living for Him.

Sometimes I wonder to myself, what is God doing in my life?  

I have been trying to focus my perspective on Him more than ever before, it is hard to do with the many distractions of daily life sometimes.  And at the same time, it is even more so important to focus on Him because of this busy season of life.

My first desire for my future self that I can remember (aside from playing mommy), was to become a missionary and care for others.  It never was a "career goal" because I didn't know how that worked.  We've been reading a lot of missionary stories in school and I like pulling out the different character traits (strengths and flaws) of the missionaries and the ways that God works with those and around them sometimes.

I reflect on my life and where I am now.  My career passion was and still is children and their families.  Except I don't have a desire to go back to the early childhood career path.  I love where I am now in the chaos and busyness of motherhood. 

Mission work is anywhere and everywhere God leads.  He has led me home, and home is my mission field.  Caring for my husband, striving to be a godly wife and the example we as a couple are to those around us.  Raising and schooling our children, focusing on character building and the skills and challenges each faces.  Our impact on our little neighborhood as a family with our interactions and behavior.  

Not to say that any of this is done with perfection by any means.  In fact, many times I teach -and most often learn through my many failures and I pray for humility to be the wife and mother, the woman of God that I am called to be.

Rough Times Require Adjustments

 Being the mom, the homemaker, the cook, the wife, the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none...

I've been realizing too slowly that I need to make some adjustments to be able to manage this season of life.  I need to take more time for me, to take care of me.  I need to take charge and make the structure happen that I need for our family life to function.

I've been praying about decisions and where/what God wants me to cut or adjust.  Firstly, I had to start going to bed earlier.  I hate going to bed without my hubby, but in this season, our needs are different.  He's hurting too badly to lay down for an entire night.  I'm up early with our littles and sometimes throughout the night too.  I'm not functioning without enough sleep.

School has been stressful too.  I hear a lot of complaining throughout the day and I need to nip it in the bud.  I have been praying to be able to discern what complaints are sincerely areas I need to address and which complaints I need to correct my children for.  I find that I inadvertently enable my kids to complain when I provide a listening ear without a careful discerning of the reality of the situation.

Health & Nutrition is another biggie.  One of my worst areas of stress.  Our family has so many individual special food needs/limitations that I have trouble finding the items we need at one store.  Lately I've been shopping 3-5 stores, even with pick-up orders it is a lot to manage.  I've really been praying hard about what items we might cut or switch to try and decrease the shopping stress.

And lastly, finding time to care for me.  I got my hair cut finally, something I've been wanting to do for about a month now.  I like the shorter length and almost wish I would have tried it a bit shorter.  Tonight was my "work night" for getting school curriculum stuff done, but I treated myself to a warm bath first and then focused on our school routine for tomorrow and tweaked it to include some recess time and structured my day to hopefully allow it to flow better.  Self care is self preservation. :0)

The priorities I have listed on the refrigerator also help me to remember what is most important:

God, Marriage, Family, Home, School.  

When they aren't focused on in the correct order, things start to fall apart, and I could insert a small little "me" between God and Marriage at times, because if I don't take care of me, I can't take care of anyone else either.  Balance is the key, and knowing where the little line where self care changes to selfishness makes a huge difference!  Staying in tune with God keeps my focus on the right things in the right ways.