LOADING…

As I was waking up this morning, my mind started running. It seemed to be in the process of loading and I began thinking about all of the things that I needed to do today.  School starts for us on Monday, and I am determined to take today to finish getting my house in order.  However, as I lay there, I heard that still small voice say, “Rest”. 

Now you may be a better person than I am.  You may know your limits.  You may say to yourself, “That can wait for another day.”  We talked about something very similar recently in my post, “I’m Letting Go”.

Here is where I become vulnerable.  I want you to see that we ALL struggle, and we ALL must be reminded from time to time to just STOP.

Maybe this is just the season that I am in?  Maybe you don’t ever deal with this.  However, I know that I must constantly check myself. 

Let me explain. 

I have been dealing with bronchitis for a month now and working on getting things ready at our Christian school.  So yesterday was the first day I have had in three weeks to address my house.  It isn’t awful, but there are some things that I really wanted to get done before school starts on Monday.  I won’t bore you with all the details, but I will tell you that I have my heart set on making some things for the kids to put in the freezer (such as pizza and cheeseburger rolls; recipes to come) for their lunches.  Add that to getting the normal things cleaned around here, and only two days to do it is not enough.

My family knows that when I get into my cleaning moods, I can either be an ogre or I can be the happiest person ever.  I have found that the ogre usually appears when I am dealing with the kids’ rooms, picking up after my husband, or when everyone is sitting around doing nothing to help.  A happy me appears when things are flowing at a steady pace as I clean.

Don’t go there…. I don’t have a split personality.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of stopping off in my son’s room.  My intention was to just sweep, mop, vacuum, and dust.  However, things suddenly changed when I moved stuff from under his bed to sweep and started finding clothes and shoes. 

I had wondered where those socks had gone.

My poor kids!  I had to constantly check myself.  I reminded myself that my son is a typical 6-year-old. He sees something he hasn’t seen in awhile, and suddenly he wants to play with it.  Or I start throwing broken stuff away (including random sticks), and he seems to be able to find a use for it.  Yet, this one little detour took ALL of my day.

Thankfully, my daughter was in the kitchen, taking care of the dishes (in her own way). 

I feel like I did so much better than previously.  Keeping a check on myself as I worked and then winding the day down, with everything still not completed, making pizza, and playing retro games with the family, made me realize that I am making progress.

So, this morning, when I heard “Rest”, I did exactly that.  I laid there in bed and went right back to sleep.  My body and mind needed to rest.

Hebrews 12:1 is one of my favorite Scriptures. 

"…let us lay aside every weight and sin which doeth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." (KJV)

We, as humans, are so easily distracted.  We are always finding things to occupy our time.  Then we suddenly wonder why we don’t have time to stop and rest.  We complain about always being too busy.  However, to me, this Scripture says to run with patience.

Ouch!

That’s one of the hardest things for me.  Patience.  My mom said that she was praying for patience when I was born.  I’m not quite sure how to take that.

The point is that we need to learn patience in life so that we can slow down and rest.

Yes, I still have lots to do this afternoon in preparation for school next week.  BUT I am going to do it as I can and try hard not to feel overwhelmed.  I am still a work in progress.  I don’t know that I will ever have it all together.  Yet, I’m going to keep working on being patient with myself as I move towards the finish line.

That specific chip that God placed inside of me is still LOADING.

PS: My husband wanted me to point out that he did at least hang the blinds in our son’s room.  I think it helps his ego to get some credit for my mood.  Even if those blinds have been waiting to be hung for approximately two years.