Rocks First
Written at an earlier date.
Work, work, work, everything inside of me is screaming to complain. Why I would complain about work? I don’t know. I rarely do a lot of it. My Rewards have been well trained and perform the majority of household tasks. I find that I am now in a “managerial” type position, and I hate it. It was much easier being the worker, the one who scrubbed, sorted, folded, and cleaned. It was much nicer just doing it all myself, before the Rewards were trained. There was a satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, a comfort in knowing that I had given large to my family. Not so now. Now, there is a dissatisfaction. A growing disgust for myself. A sense of being lazy and no good.
Am I accomplishing less? No, much more. For I still work, just on other things. Projects that find me sitting, typing, writing, instead of working and cleaning. Projects that tire my eyes and weary my mind have replaced those that strengthened my arms and provided time for prayer and stories. Rewards used to gather around. Now they scatter to domains of their own. I have trained them to do this. I am the one who told them to go on and play, for I had typing and studying to do. There were friends to email, and posts to be written. I and I alone have trained my sweet rewards not to include or look for me, their mama. I trained them, by default, that they must create their own fun, alone, for mama is much too busy.
Woe to me, for I have not received these little ones in His name. Like a queen on a throne, I have sent them away and told them only to come when called. This is not the heart of the Father. This is the work of one with selfish ambitions walking paths of her own choosing and making while blogging about serving loved ones as Jesus would. Little by little I have allowed myself to wander down a path I was not created to wander. I have guiltily snuck back to the way I belonged in and worked with a ferocity, but before long, the call of a foreign path would be heard. And I, longing to be heard, would answer the enticing strain time and time again. The praises of others meant more to me than the mission of ministering to my Rewards. That age old desire to be heard and noticed stuck a ring in my nose and led me along. Not only did I willingly go, I used a blog entitled A Mother’s Rewards to do so. How sad is that?
Will the blog cease? No, I don’t feel that I am to close the blog. I feel that I am to actively engage myself in the life I have been created to live. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that correcting my focus and spending my time and energy where they are supposed to be spent will provide more time for blogging than is currently available. I read somewhere that when we fill a jar with rocks, then gravel, and then sand we can fit much more in than when we put the sand in first, then the gravel, and the rocks last. Rocks can represent necessities, gravel what is important, and sand what is wanted or desired with the jar being a day. Here’s to putting in the rocks and letting the sand sift in later.
Work, work, work, everything inside of me is screaming to complain. Why I would complain about work? I don’t know. I rarely do a lot of it. My Rewards have been well trained and perform the majority of household tasks. I find that I am now in a “managerial” type position, and I hate it. It was much easier being the worker, the one who scrubbed, sorted, folded, and cleaned. It was much nicer just doing it all myself, before the Rewards were trained. There was a satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, a comfort in knowing that I had given large to my family. Not so now. Now, there is a dissatisfaction. A growing disgust for myself. A sense of being lazy and no good.
Am I accomplishing less? No, much more. For I still work, just on other things. Projects that find me sitting, typing, writing, instead of working and cleaning. Projects that tire my eyes and weary my mind have replaced those that strengthened my arms and provided time for prayer and stories. Rewards used to gather around. Now they scatter to domains of their own. I have trained them to do this. I am the one who told them to go on and play, for I had typing and studying to do. There were friends to email, and posts to be written. I and I alone have trained my sweet rewards not to include or look for me, their mama. I trained them, by default, that they must create their own fun, alone, for mama is much too busy.
Woe to me, for I have not received these little ones in His name. Like a queen on a throne, I have sent them away and told them only to come when called. This is not the heart of the Father. This is the work of one with selfish ambitions walking paths of her own choosing and making while blogging about serving loved ones as Jesus would. Little by little I have allowed myself to wander down a path I was not created to wander. I have guiltily snuck back to the way I belonged in and worked with a ferocity, but before long, the call of a foreign path would be heard. And I, longing to be heard, would answer the enticing strain time and time again. The praises of others meant more to me than the mission of ministering to my Rewards. That age old desire to be heard and noticed stuck a ring in my nose and led me along. Not only did I willingly go, I used a blog entitled A Mother’s Rewards to do so. How sad is that?
Will the blog cease? No, I don’t feel that I am to close the blog. I feel that I am to actively engage myself in the life I have been created to live. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that correcting my focus and spending my time and energy where they are supposed to be spent will provide more time for blogging than is currently available. I read somewhere that when we fill a jar with rocks, then gravel, and then sand we can fit much more in than when we put the sand in first, then the gravel, and the rocks last. Rocks can represent necessities, gravel what is important, and sand what is wanted or desired with the jar being a day. Here’s to putting in the rocks and letting the sand sift in later.