Feeling Stressed?

And in this nervous age that we’re living in…  Today I got my mind made up to something, “I’ve just got to do it,” and tomorrow it’s a million miles from me; something has done cut in and done this and that. And you have a time, trying to keep your wits together. – William Branham

Tension and stress seem to rule the days for many of us. So many things to do, and of course, they should have been done yesterday. With all the gadgets and the conveniences of life, you would think our lives would have become more routine and relaxed but in contrast, it has caused us to be able to do additional things.  While our grandparents and great-grandparents who had very few conveniences could take times of rest, we, on the other hand, are trying to fit in more and more.

But as mothers and fathers we have a responsibility to try and keep, to the best of our ability, home life calm, restful and somewhat predictable.  Doing more than we are able causes us to become stressed and tense which sets an atmosphere around us of the same.  Then the children catch our mood and become irritable and out of sorts. And thus, we get on the merry-go-round.

We ourselves must have times of refreshment.

• Time spent with the Lord, being refreshed, rejuvenated and equipped to face the challenges ahead
• And we sometimes even need leisure time. (gasp!)

Here is what Charlotte Mason had to say in School Education – volume 3.  “Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily” -Charlotte Mason

How many times do we lay the blame of our children’s unhappy moods on them when really the children just picked it up from us?

How thankful I am that each day is a new beginning, a new start filled with fresh hope.  I am so thankful, too, that we are not left alone in the raising of our children but that God has a vested interest in each one of them.  He is working in them.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Phillipians 2:13

As stay-at-home mom’s, we certainly could take advantage of the fact that we have the opportunity to do with our day as we will – to dally our day away not doing much.  But what happens when it’s 5:30 and the husband will be home in half an hour and supper’s not prepared?  We rush, we rush the children and we’re all feeling harried – all because we did not order our days properly.

A little forethought with planning would change the whole scenario.

(I know mealtimes might be a bad example just because if you have small children, mealtimes can be very trying. But maybe try to see the point I’m making and not dwell on the actual example. 🙂 )

I am not writing this saying I have arrived. I wish I could say I have, but instead I am writing these things because I know that when they are practiced, my day is filled with rest, contentment and the joy of being a stay at home mom.

Time with the Lord.

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Exodus 33:14

Planning our day so that our duties can be done in an unhurried manner

You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind. -Gordon B. Hinckley

Leisure time when we find ourselves maxed.

Let the mother go out to play! -CM