I woke up not wanting to do anything but sleep in really late.
Gary finally gets home tomorrow. And, believe me, he has much more reason to feel tired than I do. I am amazed at how God gives him such strength to endure the hours of jet lag every single month. And he dives right back into being a great husband and father without missing a beat. I am so blessed.
The beautiful springtime weather lured us all outside. The boys couldn’t even finish their core school work for the day. And I couldn’t even pick up the papers off the floor. Our house is a wreck. It looks like Hurricane Levi blew through. (Thank goodness I still have a day before my husband arrives!)
And even after a very mild winter, I’ve been longing for the trees to bud and the flowers to bloom. But am I really ready for spring? I mean, we still haven’t taken down the Christmas lights yet.
And am I ready to face the Bee Battles and Wasp Wars? Because, as of yesterday, they all-of-a-sudden seem to know that it’s springtime, too.
No longer do I have the old “it’s too cold” excuses for not doing the landscaping, re-building our patio area, re-organizing the garage, or just plain getting everything sorted from when our house was under construction. Our to-do list is about a mile long. And that’s when it’s printed in 8-point font.
This week it’s been more about that scary word, “Perseverance.” We are halfway through Memory Master proofing. (In all honesty, the Memory Master thing has robbed a lot of joy from our home.) We have that “pick-me-up” plan in case at any point we have to experience the failure of not passing a proof. But I think these lessons on perseverance are more for me.
The truth is, I have motivation problems.
Like when I want to skip the spelling lessons because I know how confusing it is for our oldest son to divide a word into syllables. After all, their mom puts extra syllables into almost every single word. (Really, I am trying to persevere in speaking like a normal human being, for the sake of my children.)
Or like when we get to Monday night and it suddenly dawns on me that our homeschool community day is tomorrow and I haven’t coached the boys at all on presentations. I search the scattered remains of my mind to help my children choose something, anything. Thankfully, I have had a few motivational moments in the past, so we are able to pull out a last-minute demonstration on how to make Shamrock Suncatchers. As much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s pretty common for me to remember presentations at about 8pm the night before our community day. This is probably because it’s not on our checklist.
Funny how those Shamrock Suncatchers also pulled up the Story of St. Patrick. That one happens to be about perseverance, too.
So… in the midst of all of our checklists, I just want to encourage my friends to persevere on the important things. Continue Loving your Little Ones. Continue praying over your children. Show them your love for God and sing out loud. Teach them about God’s love for them and what it means to stand strong (or simply rest in God’s loving arms) in the midst of trials. Read to them a whole bunch, and listen to delightful audio books ingrained with scripture. And remember to smell the flowers and play in the sandbox. Because this stuff is much more important than our to-do lists (…and my foreboding lists of links.)
(For more inspiration on persevering prayer, download the Mother’s Prayer Calendar.)