I'm not the only one who thinks like this!

There are seasons in our life where we need to cut out certain activities temporarily, so as not to crowd out the two most important jobs we have as wives and mothers...tending our hearts (soul) and caring for our family.  So often, we crowd out these two priorities with less insignificant activities and events while we pat ourselves on the back as we look at all we have accomplished or checked off our "to do" list.  About the time I think, "I can do that.  I should do this.", God directs my thinking and reading toward His purpose and plan for my life...first as His daughter, next as a wife, then as a mother, and finally as a servant to others. 

Proverbs 22:3-5

Proverbs 31:25-31

If I am snapping at my husband and children, if I am too busy to stop and read God's Word, if my house is in constant disarray, if I spend hours on the computer or t.v., if I go through the drive-thru several times a week, if I constantly complain about being tired, if I find my joy in the pats on the back, if...

I am not obeying God's Word.  It is that plain and simple. 

God allows us to make our own choices, but He never intended for us to choose to crowd Him or our family out of the life with which He has blessed us.  He didn't call me to be "Superwoman"!  He called me to be His daughter, Ted's wife, and Ashlynn, Alisa, and Teddy's mother!  Anything else...that He gives me to do...is an added blessing!  How about sitting back and waiting for God to bring those extra blessings, rather than forcing something that God didn't have in store for you in the first place?  Something will have to give and then fall apart...it shouldn't be our relationship with our Lord or our family that suffers first.  It is something to think and pray about on a daily basis. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“God never places us in any position in which we cannot grow. We may fancy that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting about petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress.”  Elizabeth Prentiss

The beautiful trees of the autumn season cannot shed their beautiful leaves from their sturdy branches without strong roots!