A Wise Mother Guards Her Time

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She was busy running the women's ministry at church. She would rush home and get ready for her MOPS meeting and then later in the day she knew she would somehow try to fit in the desperately needed shopping trip to host the monthly bible study in her home. She also had to run Johnny to soccer practice and little Suzy to her ballet class. She had forgotten to make dinner again and hubby would be home soon not to mention she hadn't touched the growing pile of laundry for days. She was tired, overwhelmed, and burnt out.

With all these seemingly good activities, she felt a gnawing at her soul. She had not read to her children for months, and yesterday she had yelled at her husband because she felt burdened by all the housework that she had to do when she finally did make it home from being out. She sunk despairingly down into her chair and saw an unfinished sewing project laying in a basket nearby and wondered when she would ever have time to even think about when she could complete such a project. She knew something in her life was amiss---but didn't she have the life she had always dreamed of? Didn't she take on these commitments with good intentions to serving her Lord?

Women were designed to be helpmeets, it is within our intrinsic nature to want to be available whenever there is a need. But we often do not pray before we take on new commitments as we blindly nod and say yes to fill someone elses needs. We forget to seek wise counsel and ask our husband what he thinks. Before we know it we have schedules that are swamped with well-meaning duties and obligations that were never intended for us, distracting us from our first responsibilities---time with God, our husbands and our children.

We have forsaken what is good with what is BEST. The days can be filled with many temptations, all enticing our souls, minds and our hearts away what is God's best for us. I believe many of us unknowingly choose such busyness for our lives falsely assuming it is the norm, but what we really need is to just live more simply. Simplicity helps to restore peace and order.

Sometimes we need to pare away the unnecessary things in our lives. This might be saying no to outside activities or events. This might be stepping down from some ministry positions we have found ourselves in. This could be putting some of your favorite craft projects on hold to be able to do some real work around the home. This might also mean taking a long break from the internet if we find it always tugging at our hearts pulling us away from our first duties.

If we find ourselves unsure if this is taking place we should ask ourselves a few questions: Are our homes in order? Are we getting meals to our husbands on time? Is the training and education of our children being neglected? Are the clothes in good repair and washed? All of these things take time and they are important. The mandate in Titus 2 is to love our husbands, love our children, to be self controlled, pure, kind, keepers at home and submissive to our own husbands, so that the word of God may not blasphemed. When we are doing these things, we are doing the Lord's work that He commanded us to do. These things to do not have to perfect, no home with people living in it will ever be, but we need to try to do our best in doing what we can in our circumstances.

Mother, turn your heart towards home!!! If you have a straying heart that always wants to be out shopping and driving all over town, surfing the net, emotionally distracted and absent with the non-important, pray that the Lord will give you a heart to stay home, to be present, to love it and to faithfully learn how to manage it well. It is well known that the woman is the heart of the home------but if she is gone all the time, now the home is lonely and empty. The mother is the one who helps fulfill the vision of her husband and puts into action cultivating the culture, warmth, order and atmosphere of the home, something that is impossible to fulfill being physically or mentally absent. It is hard to look well to the ways of our home and those in it if we are distracted by other so called "good" commitments or pursuits that are not required of us. We must use our best energies toward giving our all to our loved ones, not just our leftovers. May the Lord give us all wisdom on what might need to be eliminated from our lives, or our childrens lives, to preserve the sanctity of our precious family time and to manage our homes well.