Perspective
Ah perspective. The ever-elusive unattainable goal. This is true for me anyways.
One minute I am sitting on the rug, feeling blessed for the opportunity to stay home playing with three adorable kids, and the next minute I'm stuck in the house with three screaming toddlers with no life. What changed? Just my perspective!
And yet, I get sucked in to the moment. I start feeling sorry for myself, I think what a nice life the women have who work outside of the home, with some measuring stick of their success. With consistent life form contact. With a break from the screaming, yelling, pushing, complaining, whining....
Of course my mood seeps into the children. And then, Murphy's Law....they actually start yelling, pushing, complaining, whining. Occasionally (I don't want to overstate this, if I say 50% I am probably exaggerating) I am able to break the cycle. I take a moment. I open my bible. I pray. I calm down. I open my eyes, and like magic (or like the miracle that I know it to be) my kids are back to the cute three faces I remember.
I don't know how to break this cycle on a permanent basis. Some weeks are better than others. When I have more fellowship, more time in God's Word, more communication with my husband, I am usually able to stay calm in the testing moments at home and ride out their mood. But other weeks, Gibbs comes home and plays Russian Roulette with my mood of the day.
But (and yes, I know the rule of grammar that you don't start a sentence, much less a paragraph, with a but....but, oh well.) at night, when I lay quietly after spending some quiet time reflecting, I am always grateful that I can stay home, raising the kids and playing a supporting role to my husband. God gives me the grace I need to see them as He sees them, and shows me His perspective on raising kids.
The day to day work can be so tedious, exhausting, sometimes boring and yet unexplainably difficult, often thankless...... it's hard to remember that God values them. The investments I'm making in them might not be high return, short term investments. They're more like investing in bonds I guess. Slow....steady... I'm trying to learn not to obsess over checking my portfolio every day, it'll just be discouraging. But over a longer period of time, I can see glimpses of what they are going to become. I can see how the time and energy I am investing is growing in them. God is faithful to change my perspective a little more each day
One minute I am sitting on the rug, feeling blessed for the opportunity to stay home playing with three adorable kids, and the next minute I'm stuck in the house with three screaming toddlers with no life. What changed? Just my perspective!
And yet, I get sucked in to the moment. I start feeling sorry for myself, I think what a nice life the women have who work outside of the home, with some measuring stick of their success. With consistent life form contact. With a break from the screaming, yelling, pushing, complaining, whining....
Of course my mood seeps into the children. And then, Murphy's Law....they actually start yelling, pushing, complaining, whining. Occasionally (I don't want to overstate this, if I say 50% I am probably exaggerating) I am able to break the cycle. I take a moment. I open my bible. I pray. I calm down. I open my eyes, and like magic (or like the miracle that I know it to be) my kids are back to the cute three faces I remember.
I don't know how to break this cycle on a permanent basis. Some weeks are better than others. When I have more fellowship, more time in God's Word, more communication with my husband, I am usually able to stay calm in the testing moments at home and ride out their mood. But other weeks, Gibbs comes home and plays Russian Roulette with my mood of the day.
But (and yes, I know the rule of grammar that you don't start a sentence, much less a paragraph, with a but....but, oh well.) at night, when I lay quietly after spending some quiet time reflecting, I am always grateful that I can stay home, raising the kids and playing a supporting role to my husband. God gives me the grace I need to see them as He sees them, and shows me His perspective on raising kids.
The day to day work can be so tedious, exhausting, sometimes boring and yet unexplainably difficult, often thankless...... it's hard to remember that God values them. The investments I'm making in them might not be high return, short term investments. They're more like investing in bonds I guess. Slow....steady... I'm trying to learn not to obsess over checking my portfolio every day, it'll just be discouraging. But over a longer period of time, I can see glimpses of what they are going to become. I can see how the time and energy I am investing is growing in them. God is faithful to change my perspective a little more each day
I know exactly what you mean. When I remember that all the little things I do during the day can be me serving Jesus then I feel better. I think about Jesus coming for dinner and it becomes easier to clean up the house and set the table. Easier to get the laundry put away when I think that the socks belong to Jesus. I know I sound crazy but it helps.
ReplyDeletelove reading your thoughts.