I'm lying in bed trying to fight off yet another flu bug. This winter has been the worst. Penny and I just seem to be tossing sicknesses back and forth and it is definitely not something I'm used to. I very rarely get sick so being confined to my bed so often this year has been hard for me.
I have been a mother for 7 months now. I have spent every day trying to study Penny's cues and find the best routine for our family. I have days where I feel like I'm rocking it as a mom and days where I feel like I will never be able to figure it out. Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed with trying to find a healthy balance for everything. Because I have been spending the last 7 months totally focused on Penny and her needs, I have lost the priority of taking care of myself and I think I'm finally starting to feel the effects of it.
Moms, how do we do it all? How do we manage to fit in prayer time, exercising, and personal hygiene before we tackle the ridiculously long to-do list? How do we find time to engage our own hobbies like painting, crafting, or reading a book? How do we utilize those precious few hours of nap time by cleaning or meal planning while also making time to sit down and eat? And where in the heck do we find time to just sit and play with our babies amidst all of that?
These questions run through my head every day. And I can search and search online until my fingers are numb but I'm not finding the solutions I need. I know that in order to best care for my family I have to make caring for myself a priority. I find myself skipping lunch so I can check off a few more things on my to-do list or forgoing a shower so I can clean the bedroom and start the laundry. Even worse, my quiet time with God has become something that falls to the bottom of my list. If I get everything else done, then maybe I'll have some time for God before bed.
I know that realistically I have to accept that I won't be able to do it all. And I know very well that my value is not dependent on how clean my house is or how many home cooked meals are on the table each week, but I could use advice on the basics. Finding balance is much harder than I anticipated and if someone has the secret I want in on it!
3 comments:
Jordan, you can never be perfect as a mother because your child is constantly changing. Their needs change and it takes a couple of days for us to catch up.
As for time for yourself, you need to make time for it. Even though you are home full-time, you aren't the only one responsible for Penny's care and the housekeeping. Plan on three hours scattered throughout the week for yourself and stick to the plan. Schedule it on the calender if need be. You will be a more relaxed wife and mother if you can adhere to this.
Jordan--thank you so much for this post. I have been a mom for only six weeks, and the past few days, those six weeks have been catching up with me an making me feel SO overwhelmed--it's wonderful to know I'm not the only one who feels this way!
Balance is something I too am always trying to find. We were talking about this in our coaches group at church about a month ago, discussing how we encourage small group leaders in living balanced lives. But way too often, my life has been unbalanced, out of proportion. And while I know that God doesn't hate me for being unbalanced and that His presence isn't dependent on my observing quiet times or anything like that, I also know that the unbalanced state which I constantly seem to be living in is not sustaining or life-giving. I completely agree that sometimes unbalance is unavoidable. And maybe I'm crazy, but I want to see Jesus in those crazy days as much as I do in the well-balanced ones. I want to be able to know that while all else is wacky and out of control, God's love and affection are constant. So what can we do to create balance? I don't know and frankly, I've come to conclude that we can spend all our lives fighting time-- wanting more minutes for more things. I think part of our feeling of being unbalanced will never go away, personally, because we're humans and we're abiding by this earthly time clock when, in reality, God has set eternity in our hearts. Because we have eternity in our hearts, things don't really make sense...and I think it's because we have a little bit of eternity in our hearts.
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