Strength for the Day

I think it is safe to say that most of us moms are tired much of the time...especially when we have really young children. For me that season is fading fast (the youngest human here is 8 and so only kittens keep me up if anything does), but yet I receive some emails often from moms who have younger children who want to know how I do it all. Here's a few thoughts, including some insights from yesterday's Sunday school class.

Firstly, if you have five children under 6, you need to know that when I also had five children under six I basically was lucky to have dinner on the table sometime before bedtime. There are times and seasons to life, and while all of your young ones are still just old enough to make messes but not quite old enough to be effective helpers on a consistent basis, other things have to be put on hold that are not quite as important (hobbies, projects, group involvements, outside commitments, egroups, etc.). I think it is useful to have something that you do that helps you to be refreshed and come back to your primary job as mommy with your batteries recharged, but it is a balance you have to acheive between your hobby refreshing you, to your hobby stretching you thin or becoming an escape from real life responsibilities.

Secondly, eating better...I'm not talking a perfect diet either. If you tend to be a perfectionist about eating and when you fail to stick to your raw foodism or your low carb or whatever strict diet, you go off on a junk food binge because you feel like you "failed", then you are causing more harm than good. From talking with other moms, I've noticed this is common to one degree or another. Eat good food, but allow yourself grace. Take baby steps to healthier eating so that the changes last longer. Drink lots of water, and get your body moving a little bit every day, and you will find you feel better. And...by moving a little bit every day, that means what it says...if you don't exercise now, do maybe five minutes of simple stretching. You can find some info in a pdf file on this site: www.presidentschallenge.com in their downloads section...don't just go from couch potato to trying to run 5 miles or working out for an hour in the gym. You WILL be tired!

Thirdly, but perhaps most importantly for a Christian, spend time being refreshed in the Lord. This includes gathering with other believers in your local church, and also private devotional time. I think the tendency I used to have was to look at my devotional times as something else to check off of my list of things to do. But, instead of being a duty, we should view our times with the Lord as a time when God encourages us and reassures us of His love. That was something we learned in Sunday School yesterday. Our teacher is going through the Psalms and was teaching out of Psalm 27. In this psalm, David is warring against his enemies, and reaffirming his trust and hope in the Lord to deliver him. The observation was also made in class that we don't go to the "fortress" to hie but to gain strength to face our enemies (and the Christian's enemies are the devil, the world, and our own flesh). That fortress is our Lord.

The Proverbs 31 woman is pretty amazing and a challenge to all of us ladies, I think, but years ago as I was doing a study (and making a list of everything I thought this passage was telling me I had to do!), i realized that it doesn't say "this is what her DAY looks like.." it was speaking of her whole life...she wasn't just home from the hospital with a new baby, several toddlers, and no help. She managed a household full of servants, ran a cottage industry, wisely managed the household resources, and so forth. If anything, her children come across, in the end of the passage, as being older and looking back at their mother's life, and calling her blessed...the whole point of the passage was that a virtuous wife was indeed RARE...but this is what the pattern of her life looks like, something for us to shoot for as we go through life. It was not to discourage as about not being able to find the time today to plant vineyards, sew sashes and manage our households, or hear our 2 year olds rise up and call us blessed.