"There is so much work to be done, especially in a family of six. It almost never stops. When one load of laundry is taken off the line, another is ready to go on. When one meal is cleaned up, it’s almost time to begin the next. Sometimes we work very hard for leisure, also (as any mama knows who has gone camping).
A woman can work very hard. She can organize and make lists, and she can tidy and straighten and wash and reorganize and dunk her baby in a bath and dress him and put him to bed.
But not all of a woman is made to work. The soul of a woman contains so much more- there is a girl-child inside, ready to play! Sometimes the girl-child is upset, because there has been no time to play, no time to laze around and read on a window seat on a rainy day.
But there is work to do. So, there must be a way to bring the two together! Surely God did not make us to forget how to be children (Jesus suggested the very opposite when He said, “Unless you become like children, you will not see the Kingdom of God”) and surely He is not a great taskmaster, always hovering and waiting for us to account for ourselves."
~Rae the Journey Mama
"I used to struggle with this too. After I had cancer something changed and now I find all those chores ‘fun’–they seem like play to me. Because there is always ‘work’ to do, I have fun all day long!! I imagine people think I am a boring not so creative person, but I love the ordinary day and find it delights me.
But I wasn’t always like that– and I didn’t evolve into this way of thinking/being. I “learned’ it. I oft think of what the Apostle Paul declared “I have learned to be content, in whatsoever state I am in”.
A child’s work is play. And an adult’s work is his ‘play’ so to speak. And play he will, unless he resents the task at hand. Even a tinge of resentment will cause it to be a drudge.
We adults have to work at kicking out even the tiniest thought that hints of wishing we could be doing other than the work at hand. While it may be true that we’d rather be doing something else, we must deny any feeling of discontent the freedom to exercise itself in our heart.
“Search me Oh God, and know my heart”. Why? Because my heart–the heart of man– is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked. Please God, shine a light into its recesses and reveal to me my true state....
That which I’d dreaded or felt to be a chore became a privilege, a blessing in itself.
I was changed by transforming my mind. When I lay there, in that hospital bed with cancer, I thought about all my pettiness, my murmurings, and realized I was akin to those wanderers in the wilderness and I wept sorely and told God I was so sorry..and I vowed to myself that if God did indeed spare me I would never ever again despise the daily grind."
~Dinah Soar
"However, I feel that for me it is less about discontentment, and more about learning that being a good girl is not about having every thing on my “to do list” done, or having every part of my schedule fit perfectly together.
Being who God made me to be is actually to BE a child, and it is more this state of being that I am pursuing, than running away for a day (although that is fun too).
I do think we have to deny ourselves, of course. But where we are actually longing for good things, we have to work really hard to fight against the idea that we are not worth finding playtime.
I’ve always identified with Martha in the story of Mary and Martha. Now I am beginning to understand that what Jesus was telling Martha is that we are not only workers, in our souls. That there is so much more, and that he sees it and that we can work together to make room for it."
~Rae
I wanted to share a few parts of a discussion happening over at her blog. I read it on a day when I felt exactly like she described so beautifully. I thought perhaps I was not the only one who occasionally feels pulled between the worker and the girl-child. Feeling a little out of balance with the high demands of running a house and family and wanting to have a few minutes to listen to the child in my soul that is always being brushed aside. The other day I was reading the story of Exodus 17 to Juden. It is hard not to be astounded at God's people and their complaining spirit. I find myself once again saying, what the heck is wrong with these people? God sends them bread from heaven every day, water springs forth from a rock. He redeems them from their slavery and cares for their needs like a gentle father and still their faith burns low and they are quick to murmur complaints. No sooner do I think these thoughts that I realize that I am those people murmuring in the wilderness.
My blessings abound and I see them everyday, but it does not negate the fact that I am broken and weak and that life is much messier than all the pretty pictures. If only I could learn to receive the love my Father has for me. Why is that so hard? It's something I don't deserve and could never earn and so it's hard to understand.
I know I mentioned before some of Juden's prayers but their really is something so pure and unpretentious about the longings of a child's heart. He, like lots of other kids has certain things he includes in his prayers almost every time. Before bed we kneel as a family and Juden always starts by saying,"Jesus we love you and we know you love us."
Since I have gone through this valley of feeling so wholly un-loveable, this prayer has spoken to my heart. I think Satan enjoys filling us with doubt and constantly flaunting all of our ugliness before us, convincing us that a holy God could never love us just as we are. I'm not in the mood to give Satan any pleasure today, not while the girl-child in me wants to revel in the embrace of my Father. May we live every day in light of His love that will not let us go.
"O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee,
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee,
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be."
