Yesterday was one of those looooong parenting days. My first kiddo got up at 6:30 am and the last did not finally get settled in the bed until almost 10:00, and it seemed every second in between was a challenge. I have been working less and staying home more which is an absolute answer to prayer, but I never realized how working those 2 days every week was such a break. It really is a mental game. When I am home, I have to be on guard, not to feel isolated and depressed because sometimes being at home just me and the kiddos can be a very lonely place. When I do work, all I want is to be at home and not miss a second of involvement with my littles. With that kind of struggle going on from the minute our kiddos are born until they move away from home, no wonder all of us mama's are nuts!! Trying to learn contentment in whatever phase of life I am in, and boy am I a bad student at times. I spend so much time and energy wishing for things to be different, wishing our situations were different. 0nly to find out so many times that it is not the situation, it is just me being discontent, unsatisfied, void of peace, unthankful. I think about my children and how hard we work to provide for them. I have vivid memories of working really hard one Christmas to make everything perfect and special and one of my children voicing discontent and disappointment over her gifts on Christmas morning. Its hard to even verbalize the feelings I had as my child, that I loved with all my heart, voiced dissatisfaction with what I had worked so hard to make perfect for Christmas. Part of me wanted to "fix" whatever the issue was that was causing her unhappiness, but the other part of me, knew that this was an issue of the heart. I listened to my little girl express sadness that she didn't get a specific gift on her Christmas list and I thought about my own discontentment. (Okay, I really thought, you little brat, look at all this stuff you have and you want to ruin the morning because you didn't get one of the 10 items on your Christmas list?) But then as the Lord so often does, he showed me the direct parallel of what I must look like to my heavenly Father. I sit in a home, filled with plenty, a pantry full of food, a closet full of clothes, two cars in my garage, and complain to the Lord because I can't do this or my life doesn't look like this. Father, what must that look like to you? Just as my little one should have been content simply for the fact that it was Christmas morning and the wonderful reason for the holiday, we as her parents knew she was a long way from being content with just that. But perhaps her lesson in not getting exactly what she wanted moved her a little closer to that contented state. I am sure as The Lord looks at me and desires me to be content in Him regardless of my circumstances, He sees that I am a long way from that contented state. Perhaps even farther than my little one on Christmas. He loves me despite my short comings and knows how far I have come, but oh so far I have to go. Lord, that I would be content in you alone. Regardless of my season, in lean times that can sometimes seem impossible, and in seasons of abundance, in times of sorrow and in times of great joy. I love my children, even though raising them takes more strength and energy that ever imagined, but I know that I will not always have these babies in my nest. Life is always changing, seasons of life never stay the same. Today I literally did not have a second for my brain to think one uninterrupted thought. Perhaps in 30 years my house will be very quite with too much time for uninterrupted thought. My struggles and challenges will be very different. Father, help me begin to today to practice being content in you alone, regardless of my season, regardless of circumstances.
I know both how to have little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content--whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need . Phil 4:12. HSB
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