Reassuring Inspirations

I went to bed grumpy last night. The house was dirty, the kids were naughty, I was tired and Dan wouldn't be going with us to church in the morning. He had to work.

I left the dinner dishes on the table.

This morning I woke up with a grumpy hangover. At least that's what I'm calling it. Having never had a real hangover, I'm not sure if its a fair comparison.

We got ready for church. Despite the million times I had to tell Charlotte to "come on already" and the blackberry jelly Greg wiped on his freshly ironed shirt we managed to get to church on-time-ish.

I sat there during the opening hymn and thought about how all my good intentions to be a great mom and wonderful wife seem to last about two days before they start to crumble around me.

For example.

I instituted quiet play time for Charlotte in the afternoons. This is a period of time for her to play quietly by herself. She can play with whatever quiet thing she wants, but she has to stay on the sofa. Worked great until the purple crayon incident.

I thought it would be good to start up her reading lessons again. In fact, she asked me to. After scouring the house four separate times I had to throw in the towel and admit defeat. It is gone. With the latest shuffle of items from room to room upstairs it vanished.

TV tickets. She gets two tickets a day. Each is good for a half hour or she can give me both if she wants a movie. She gets to chose when she uses them so long as it's not quiet play time. Works great until 1) TV time is over and she's suddenly so bored 2) she wants to use a ticket 10 minutes before we have to leave. Then we start to fight.

Greg seems to only ever want to be about 12 inches from my body. Really he'd prefer to always be touching me. I should be patient with this, knowing this phase wont last, but I'm not. I'm anxious for him to get out there and explore his world. Go with the other kids and have fun.

And above all is the constant nagging I hear in the back of my head. What do we do when (this activity) is over? That's when the sibling fighting, the mess-making, and the day starts to unravel.

Depressing thoughts for church huh?

So I'm sitting there thinking and feeling, well not depressed, just deflated when a comfort comes and seems to inflate me just a bit. Here were the thoughts I had.

"We get strong by working against resistance."--My mother-in-law

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." --James 1:2-4

I think that must be my favorite scripture right now. Or perhaps just the one tat the Lord wants me to learn right now. Patience. I suppose that this lack of obvious success must be my resistance right now.

So.

On I go into the week with faith, and (hopefully) patience. Let me learn from last week and then let it go. Knowing that what I'm doing as a wife and a mother is important and is making a difference in my family and then (hopefully) into the community. With this in my mind, my goals for the coming week are:

1. To keep a clean kitchen. I don't know if its the same for you, but the state of my kitchen usually mimics the emotional state I seem to be in. This is completely unintentional. Is that normal? I don't know.
2. Stick to last weeks institutions of TV tickets and quiet time. One week is simply too short a time for a fair trial of the plan.
3. Figure out some activities that my kids and I can do together that I like. If I have to play Candyland one more time I think my mind might implode. Plus, then Greg can't play with us.

I wish you all the very best in the week to come with full confidence that ours will be as well. I hope.