Thank you, dear Readers, for your prayers! It's the old adage at work "everything will look better in the morning". My husband and I have talked long and often about my last post, I've prayed on it and gone to spiritual council in confession. I haven't reached any formal conclusions, but the Holy Spirit has prompted me with this thought along the way: You are the decisions you make. Hubby and I made the decisions we did at the prompting of much grace in our vocation preparations. We didn't know the future, the outcome, and we still don't. But aside from personal habit changes that I'd like to make, I wouldn't change the decisions that were given to us in the gifts of our children. And I know that my husband wouldn't either.
We work harder than most of our couple friends to make ends meet. And that isn't a careless "grass is greener" judgment that I throw out lightly. When we hear our friends whine about working an 8 hour day and having an occasional over 40 (or even potentially over 50 hour) work week, we grit our teeth. When you have a home based business your workday starts before the sun comes up and ends well after the midnight oil has been burned. We work hard for every dollar that we make, and we work twice as hard deliberating how every dollar should be spent. What used to be an occasional "impulse buy" doesn't happen anymore, as even a $20 purchase would set us back in our budget for the rest of the month. We recognize that, we hope it will change and that finances will become a little easier in the future, but we also recognize that there are valuable lessons to be learned in the hard times. As a wife and mother, I'm learning to distinguish between "wants" and "needs" when planning a shop. And I'm also learning how to entrust that decision to the Lord before my purchase. I'm learning that you can go very far in America establishing a home on other people's second hand items. As a girl, my Mom used to sing and play "Secondhand Rose" on the piano, and I used to find the song fascinating. We live that now!
I need to learn the differences between "good" and "perfect". Most of the time life is good. It's the rare exception in our life when it is bad. Life has never been perfect. I need to learn and accept that as one of the 'facts of life'. I need to bloom where I am planted more and be satisfied with my situation in life. I often withhold my best in an effort to 'save for a rainy day'. For what? Scripture shows us the rebuke of the servant who buried his talents (I am paraphrasing here) in the sand. He was not entrusted with more by our Lord. Did the Lord hold back in his will for my life? Why am I holding back? I'd like to face each day as if it were my last. To live life, to seize the moment, to not hide and hope for a change I'm not sure will come despite my efforts. Life isn't like that. I love that expression 'life happens while you're busy making plans'. How true is that!
As you see here, there is so much to think about, to ponder, to explore and examine. I ask your continued prayers as I go through it all. And know that I continue to pray for all of you as well. I leave you all with a very inspiring post that I found on the blog, Large Family Mothering entitled "Decorating Ideas for the Large Family".
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