mom-field-flowers

I am so weary, so tired, frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed out, put out, worn out – I can’t take this anymore!

How many times a week have I uttered those thoughts? You know what I mean, how often do I wear that attitude? What effect does that attitude have on my children?

I am convinced that my daily life with my children teaches them how to react to their world.  They model behavior they learn from me, from you.  So, if my child mopes, pouts or lashes out I need to sober up and realize they just may have learned to lash out from me.  Ouch!

One of the problems we moms have is that we try to do mothering under our own power and as a result we make the mistake of concentrating on the micro instead of the macro.

Yes, you’ve wiped down the kitchen counter for the seventh time while asking your daughter to play nice with her little brother and share (with a kind word) for the seventeenth time and there’s so much left to be done – still.

But, what have you really done that you are not always quick to recognize?  You have taught your children hour after hour how to react to life.

How to care for others, how to work hard and do what needs to get done, how to get along well with others – all good things that will serve them well. Don’t lose sight of the vast importance of how you wear each micro task in the macro of God’s plan.

When the weary sets in and joy is hard to find you have to be intentional about seeking it out.

Talk to God…constantly – the good and the bad, He already knows, but to openly go to Him with it loosens the ties that bind and helps those words up there in that first sentence to dissipate. They lose their grip.

Count your blessings…you have so much to be grateful for, that which is easily seen all around, but also that which is known deep within. Name them.

Laugh, out loud…silly – kids love silly, moms dancing in the kitchen again silly, moms singing a made up song silly, mom declared p.j. day silly. Silly is contagious and habit forming.

Lay those strangling thoughts and emotions at the cross…and leave them there.

All moms share the reality of tough twenty-four hour a day frustrations and aggravations, but you were never meant to wear those…getting rid of them is the secret to survival, that’s how you overcome and actually embrace and find joy, as you Be The Mom.

And really, isn’t joy what we want to teach our children to wear?