Category: Fulfillment

Motherhood shouldn’t just be a drudgery. Find fulfillment in your most important calling–mother.

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Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Things you never get used to as a mom

A while back we talked about the things you surprisingly get used to as a mother–but there are some things that no matter how many times you’re confronted with them, you never get used to them.

1. Never getting what you need (or not enough of what you need): Whether it’s time or personal space or your own dang bowl of ice cream

2. The awe in a child’s eyes at the sight of snow (even if it’s the fourth time today)

3. How quickly you go from the most important person in their life to the one they wouldn’t be caught dead with (and back again)

4. Never getting a vacation (you take trips, but those are just stress somewhere else!).

5. How hard it hits you during those amazing moments: you love this, and you love them.

What do you think? What will you never get used to as a mom?

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Fulfillment Faith

Doing God’s work

Someone in church shared a really interesting quote in their talk a few weeks ago, so I wrote it down. When I got home, I Googled it, and found the talk it came from. The line is at the end of this quote (emphasis is mine):

Who does God’s work will get God’s pay,
However long may seem the day,
However weary be the way.
No mortal hand, God’s hand can stay,
He may not pay as others pay,
In gold, or lands, or raiments gay,
In goods that perish and decay;
But God’s high wisdom knows a way,
And this is sure, let come what may—
Who does God’s work will get God’s pay.

I testify to you that God’s pay is the best pay that this world or any other world knows anything about.

The poem and the quote come from a talk about putting God first in our lives. So often when I hear about putting the Lord first, or doing the Lord’s work, I think of the noble pursuits in theology and evangelism and service—all things I really don’t have as much time and effort and me available for with the amount of those things motherhood requires. So, I wonder, am I not putting the Lord first? Am I not giving enough?

But as I read the full address this quote comes from, I came across a paragraph that supported a belief I’ve clung to for reassurance. (Having it set out as a doctrine of my faith makes me feel a little better too 😉 .) (Emphasis mine again, too.)

You mothers who are especially charged with the righteous rearing of the youth of Zion, are you not putting God first when you honor your divine calling by not leaving the homefront to follow the ways of the world? Our mothers put God first when they fill their highest mission within the walls of their own homes.

While there’s always more we can do for the Lord, knowing that the biggest, most me-consuming pursuit of my life is serving Him helps me not only feel better about the state of my life, but also remind me just how seriously I should take this calling.

What do you think? What helps you to remember how important motherhood is? What makes you feel better about the amount of time and effort you devote to Sisyphus childrearing?

Photo by Heidi & Matt

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Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Planning to fail

Don’t forget to enter the Five Years From Now Blogoversaryfestathon Group Writing Project! And happy anniversary, Ryan!

In church on Sunday, one of the speakers was talking about what a difference a good attitude makes. He used an example from a Primary (children’s Sunday School) manual, which I’m way too lazy to try to find, so I’ll just paraphrase:

You’re moving and you’re afraid you won’t have any friends. How would having a poor attitude affect you in this situation? A good attitude?

The speaker left the hypothetical at that, but as I sat there, I thought through my answers.

  • Poor attitude: you’re pessimistic about making friends, so you assume that people you meet wouldn’t want to be friends. You don’t go out of your way to meet people. When new people meet you, you’re shy or just plain unfriendly, and they can tell you don’t expect to make friends.
  • Good attitude: you’re confident you’ll be able to make friends. You introduce yourself to everyone you see, you put yourself in situations to make new friends, you bring neighbor gifts around, and you look for people you can form long term friendships with. People see how friendly you are and return the gesture.

Rachel being super positive!!!!!!!!Your attitude can really dictate your reality. Both having a good attitude and a poor one become self-fulfilling prophecies. Having a poor attitude leads to self-defeating behaviors, while having a good attitude helps you come up with strategies to cope with the challenges coming.

At least half the time, I wake up in the morning already behind. My two older children are already up watching cartoons or playing on the computer, and the baby is crying for me to come get her. I’m not nearly rested enough, and I can just see the patterns of too much screen time, impatience and bickering starting to take shape.

But maybe I can make a difference. Maybe I can stop the downward spiral before it starts. Some strategies to cope when I’m already starting behind would include:

  • Prayer.
  • Plan. Come up with a fun activity at home or out and about, so you have something to do instead of veg in front of the TV.
  • Eat well, maybe planning out meals and snacks for you and your kids. This sounds a little unusual, but catch-as-can grazing throughout the day contributes to that feeling of being out of control for me.

As I was drafting this post, I also came across a post by Jen from Conversion Diary on our steps for starting your day the right way—and she started out even further behind than I usually do.

What do you think? What difference does a positive mental attitude make? How do you cope when you feel like you’re starting from behind?

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Kids/Parenting MetaBlogging Fulfillment

Five years from now

It’s hard to imagine my life five years from now. Five years ago, I’d been married for two years, I was one year out of school, I had one little baby, I worked from home in Internet marketing and I started a blog.

Now I’ve been married for almost seven years, and we have three kids. I’m still blogging, though I have to admit I’ve really dropped off from time to time. I blogged professionally for a long time writing about Internet marketing news and became something of an expert, but for the last year I’ve been able to just focus on my family. I’ve begun writing fiction again, after a long break starting in college. I’ve started a writing craft blog by myself and a craft blog with my sisters. I think I’ve had several more blog ideas come and go in the mean time, but so far these are sticking.

The reason I started this blog was to help me appreciate motherhood more, to help myself and others find fulfillment in a calling I believe to be the most important thing I could do with my life right now—but which was also alternately boring and overwhelming. I wanted to be able to help other mothers feel good about a choice to stay home with their children, even though it can be long stretches of dull, hard work between the few glittering moments.

Sometimes my personal journey goes well, and sometimes it’s still rough. I think if you’d asked me five years ago, I would have told you I’d have everything figured out by now—but I think learning to be happy and grateful and content and fulfilled is a lifetime endeavor, and even if I have to take two steps forward and one step back, even if I can’t see the progress a lot of the time, even if I still struggle, as long as I keep these efforts in mind, rely on my MamaBlogga Group Writing Projectfaith and don’t let myself get too discouraged, I’ll make it—maybe not in the next five years, but I’ll be closer every day I make the effort.

My entry in the Five Years From Now Group Writing Project

What do you think? Where will you be in five years? Share your entry in the GWP today!

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Contests Faith

God Gave Us You Giveaway

That sounds terrible, doesn’t it??

The Fifth Blogoversaryfestathon continues! WaterBrook Press sent me a review copy of God Gave Us You, and I’m going to pass it along to one lucky winner (even though I really don’t want to).

God Gave Us You is a really cute book to help teach a young child about where they come from. Obviously, it comes from a religious perspective, but it’s not wedded to any particular religion. (It does teach that children were with God before they came to Earth.)

It explains how the child in the story (Little Cub, a polar bear cub) grew in his mother’s tummy and was born in the hospital (no more details than that). It’s a sweet story and a good way to give a small child a simple explanation to the question “Where did I come from?”

I’ve heard they have a similar book to help explain a new sibling, called God Gave Us Two.

Would you like a copy of God Gave Us You? Comment below to enter!

For additional entries:

  • Follow this blog (see the sidebar) and leave a comment saying you did.
  • Tweet about this post and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the Tweet itself.
  • Mention this contest on your blog or Facebook and leave a comment saying you did with a link to the FB or blog post.

Entries (aka comments) must be received by midnight on Friday, July 15, 2011. Winner to be announced Monday, July 18, 2011.

It’s also the last day to enter the Tom & Drew Boys giveaway!

Categories
Fulfillment

The law of the harvest

The winner of the EnDANGERbles giveaway is Shannon!

Sometimes it seems like the harder I work at motherhood, the worse things get—the more the chores pile up, the less time I have for myself, the less I accomplish. But that might just be my perception. Yes, if I make a good effort to focus on my children instead of, say, the Internet, I do have less time to do the things I want to (many of which, let’s face it, just aren’t that important)—but when I make my children a priority, it makes life easier for all of us because they tend to spend less time fighting and tormenting one another for the sake of getting my attention. (Hooray for reducing the stress level of the whole house!)

I think we have all seen this principle in action in our lives:

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

Or as we’re more likely to say today, you get back whatever you put into it.

Sometimes this seems to fail (though it could just be our limited perspectives), but sometimes our returns are waaay more than our investments. One example that springs to mind was one day when I brought a sandwich when I picked Hayden up from preschool. He found the sandwich in its bag and exclaimed, “Mom! You made me a sandwich? Thank you! I never been so happy!”

What kind of mothering activities pay you that kind of interest?

Photo by Jonathan