We’ve had sickness in our house this past week, which has made the usual routine kind of wonky, and definitely made changes for the better much harder to keep up. It’s so easy to fall desperately behind your ideal when your ideal is a grand one but hard to attain even with all other things being ideal! Make sense? That said, one thing is ever, ever important: a willing mind. What will follow from this is willing hands, and is next on our “list” to observe: “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” Proverbs 31:13
If you’re anything like me, being overwhelmed is a killer to motivation. It always seems like the opposite should be true, but it always tends to give me the blues and doldrums.
Just the other night we got back from a family reunion on my husband’s mother’s side, we did a bunch of errands afterward, and didn’t get home until almost 8. Nobody had eaten yet. We had just unloaded the van, adding it to our nice little mess that we already had in the house from leaving in a fairly rushed manner. Bithiah had overloaded her diaper. Abel had to be nursed. And, I was sick. And Nathan had to go back out. A look at the clock and a look at the house and the list that kept getting longer as I thought upon it mounted pretty quickly, but my husband, hearing of my depression (I’m pretty vocal about these kinds of things), before he left did a simple and powerful thing. He simplified it. “Just get them dinner and put the refrigerated things away and we’ll tackle it together when I get back. You can do this, my ‘endeavourer’.” You want to know how it really went? No? I’m boring you? Sorry!!! Anyway, just simplifying, making it sound doable, gave me a willing mind. Then I not only wanted to do, I wanted to do it all, before he got back. I love a good challenge. 🙂 I had 30 minutes. I got everything done except for making the sandwiches, which worked out fine since he had our eldest with him.
So if you’re “behind” where you want to be, here’s the challenge: Simplify! What are the absolute necessary things to get done, and what would you just like to get done? If you are at all competitive, as I am, one thing that helps is to “race”. Since I don’t have anyone to race I race myself against the clock. If it usually takes me 45 minutes to fold all 4 loads of laundry, I give myself 35. Since I often clean the kitchen in 30 minutes, I give myself 25, etc. Make it challenging enough to motivate you, but don’t make it impossible or it’ll just be depressing all over again!
A willing mind means willing hands! The verse in the Bible that talks about the willing mind is actually in reference to giving: “If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not” (can’t remember where that’s found, probably II Corinthians 8 or 9) The principal applies very well to this same thing, though. Just work, work willingly, work joyfully. At the end of the day more than likely you won’t have a husband who is saying “Why isn’t [this] done or [that] done?” Your work will be accepted. When you give you aren’t rebuked for what you didn’t give if you couldn’t give it, and in the same way when you work you will not be rebuked for what you didn’t do if you couldn’t do it.
Our offering is always to the Lord first, and He will always accept it if it is offered with humility and love.
Endeavouring Proverbs 31 