I just learned something new about my fifteen year old son tonight. He will gripe about doing things that he knows he believes in doing and he just wants to know what my reaction will be if he tells me he doesn’t believe in any of it. As he clearly and firmly stated that “all things church” are stupid and pointless to him I can see the questions burning in his eyes, “Do you still love me? Do you still accept me? Do you see me?”
Instead of going into lecture mode all I said was, “I really appreciate your opinion and I’m glad that you felt you could be honest with me.” I think I shocked the pants off him for he was totally speechless! He was getting ready to rebuttal, but instead was met with open arms…a pleasant surprise for him, I think.
This particular son had the FHE lesson tonight and he ended up taking the initiative to put together a very nice message that included the participation of little children. Yep, he just wanted to know if Mom saw him….and I do. I am learning to do this better each day even though sometimes it’s 1.5 steps forward and four steps back. Grateful for the sweet whisperings of the Spirit that prompted me to thank him for his honest opinion. Truly a tender mercy to our relationship. 🙂
I had to get on here and blog about one of my ALL TIME favorite websites. It is called Food Storage Made Easy and you can link to it here:
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/
I’m hoping I can talk hubby into putting a button on my website, I love them that much!
I seriously L-O-V-E this website and want everyone to know about it. Here’s my problem….I’m constantly thinking about food storage and constantly intimidated by it as well. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of how much should I get and what to do with it. It helps you find the best products for the best prices. The ladies who run this website are angels from Heaven!
Hooray for food storage made easy!!
Tonight it was my turn to teach family home evening and I didn’t do a very good job at it. We’re all frustrated with each other this week (due to lack of family scripture reading) so nobody’s really feeling the love these days. As I explained principles of the gospel I received glares in return. I would ask questions and a lot of answers were given half-heartedly, almost resentfully, and I found myself feeling more and more frustrated as the lesson went on. Finally in my bossy and most unpleasant “mother” tone I firmly said, “Can you all answer a little more cheerfully, please?” Yeah, not one of my finest moments in Family Home Evening history….and I daresay that it won’t be my last, which brings me to my point. I will be able to do this again in eight weeks (teach a lesson, that is) and not only will I be able to do this again, I can start preparing now to do it again, BETTER. Repentance is lovely in that it’s an opportunity to evaluate my efforts, realize there is room for change and improvement, counsel with Heavenly Father about those changes, and then make them happen. I am hopeful as I look eight weeks into my future and am terribly grateful, tonight, for do-overs in every form!!
Have you ever noticed that the information people share on Facebook is a lot like watching a soap opera? It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve checked in…the story line is always the same. I’m not sure why this makes me chuckle, but it does.
I am a mother of six children. Have I ever mentioned that? Anywho, I am a mother of six children and for some reason that makes me an expert in the eyes of those mothers who are less experienced. Little do they know I am just as clueless as the next mom. 🙂 Today I thought I would write about the things I am asked about on a regular basis and what I am really thinking to myself while answering to the latest victim.
Q: How do you keep your home so clean?
A: My answer is usually something like, “Well, I believe that many hands make light work so everybody has a job and helps get the work done.”
WIRT: (What I’m Really Thinking) Are you kidding me?! Have you seen the boogers on the wall? Can you smell the stink in my kids’ rooms? My home? Clean?! Honey, it’s a zoo around here….literally!
Q: How do you always stay so calm with your children all of the time?
A: LOL! Honey, if I got upset at every little thing my kids did I would be the most depressed and emotionally unstable woman on the block! I have to keep perspective somehow and I do that by going into observation mode, otherwise known as coping. If I’m observing my children and trying to figure out what’s making them tick, I’m learning something about them, and to be honest, I need to learn something about them at that point because I have NO CLUE what I’m doing. Oh, and if I’m “calm” enough to think about it, I throw a prayer in there, too.
WIRT: I flashback on the many years I didn’t deal well as a mother in a calm manner and shudder at the millions of dollars I’m going to have to fork out to my kids’ therapists when they are older because I over reacted too many times. On the other hand, I think about how far I’ve come since sitting in the office of the counselor I went to as a young mother because I had issues that I needed to work through and pray my own children will one day understand.
Q: How do you have time to do it all?
A: Nobody has time to do it all. You just have to decide what your priorities are. Sometimes, when you’re so overwhelmed and you don’t know where to start, you ask God to direct you to the nearest exit only to find yourself standing in front of a little row boat. Almost instantaneously you feel a voice from within telling you, “Just start rowing and I’ll take care of the rest.”
WIRT: My first thought is a prayer to God thanking him for the ability to get what little I do accomplish done because I’m envisioning the mountains of laundry in every room, the sheets on the beds in my children’s rooms that haven’t been washed for two months, the frustration my husband tries to hide from me when he goes to get ready for church and his only white dress shirt is still at the bottom of the clothes hamper, and my child’s most recent report card reflecting what little time I’ve spent with him lately. I am also haunted by the memory of the disappointment in my best friend’s voice when she and I realized simultaneously that I forgot her birthday and the realization that I have forgotten, yet again, to come up with what’s for dinner tonight and thinking I really need to get that monthly menu plan figured out one of these days. I’m really thinking that my poor family is suffering because I don’t have time to do it all! And then I wonder, what in the world do others see that I don’t!?
These are just a few examples of questions I’m asked and I hope I was able to illustrate that we never really know what is going on inside others. I also want to acknowledge that there are, in fact, some extremely talented women out there who are some of the most amazing household and family managers you’ll ever meet. Having said that, I’m proud to say I’m not ashamed to admit that I am NOT one of them.
I really don’t have a clean home, I’m really not as calm as I appear to be, and I’m really not getting anything done. Honestly, I gave up the hopes to ever become that woman a long time ago when I realized that my expectations were beginning to damage the relationships important to me. As you can see that although I have accepted that I have unrealistic expectations of myself, I’m still learning how to let go of those expectations and what a process that has been! Some expectations are a relief to let go of because there was nothing natural about them and others, I have found, need to be grieved over because either something about them was important to me, they came naturally to me, and/or the idea of learning a “new language” scared me to death. 🙂 However, expectation or not, I’m still finding joy in the experience.
The goal today was to be real with myself. Sometimes that can be scary, but instead of finding something to be afraid of I ended up learning (again) that life is a journey. Today I read that the destination is the journey. So true!
Loving my life. Loving my journey. Loving the destination. Loving myself. Expectations and all.