The day I started to understand the balance, I realised that my house had fallen on my shoulders and was preventing me from being thankful and enjoying life.
Are you house proud?
Does the cleanliness and tidiness consume you in ways that make you:
- an angry Mum/woman
- a 'too busy'/'too tired' wife..
- an 'absent friend' who doesn't notice the needs of her friends?
- a working woman who simply has too much to do and can't fit in time with other people...
My husband has had us renovating the last two homes (three if I include the house we built). Through this process I have always started out embarrassed and after a few years house proud. We always sell the house just when everything is finished. We make the children share rooms - at one stage we had two bunk beds and a cot in one room!
It brings a lot of work and frustration to our family. We seem to always be sacrificing our lives/enjoyments for something else to be done on 'the house'. Eventually it becomes a home and we are all happy, but then we realise the value and sell.. the goal was always to get ahead.. I am now asking the question "Ahead of what?" (but that's another blog..)
When I stopped chasing after the wind I started seeing that a house is just a roof with walls; it keeps you safe from the elements.. it does not keep you safe from life.
My furniture all came with a cost, not a financial cost but the price of my time and energy! It forced me to teach my children lessons through it - sometimes with me losing my self-control.. for example: My lounge is fabric, so no eating or colouring on it, and no shoes on it.. it needs to be spot cleaned and once a year professionally cleaned. Also my dining table is solid timber.. I needed to make sure the kids didn't draw on it or scratch it.. the walls are freshly painted so I tried to keep the kids from running toys up it..
ARRRRRGH! The intensity of watching 6 children all the time so they didn't damage or destroy these materialistic possessions drove me crazy, not to mention then when visitors brought their children over who would jump on my lounge and break things. I would then have a breakdown emotionally and take it out on my husband and children..
To be a Mary, which is encouraged by the Lord, is not as hard as we think.
We must see things in the eternal view, rather than in a wordly view.
2 Co 4:17-18 - 'For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outways them and will last forever. So we don't look at the trouble we can see now; rather, we fix our eyes on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.'
Materialistic possessions.. we shouldn't hold on to them too tightly - they don't last anyway and they are not worth investing time. I only have one life to live and I want to live it for Jesus.. You don't know what you have until you meet someone who has nothing.. that's when we should see that our house is massive and full of 'things'. To love is what is important and to share the gospel is where our priority is!
Today, look past the things that are burdening you.. hand them over to Jesus (Mt 11:28-29). Your house work is temporary as we all know.. so don't let it steal from you the joys of sharing your life with your children, husband and friends. Fit in the housework and cooking when you can, but make sure you read the Bible.. for out of your relationship with Jesus and from reading the word, praying and fellowship in the body.. your cup will overflow and your priorities will be that of Mary even when you have to do that of Martha...
I hope you leave here with meat to chew on - so to speak :)
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Thanks for your encouragement......