Monday, May 8, 2017

“Please excuse this mess; I am building my dream home.”


“Please excuse this mess; I am building my dream home.”


What is your first thought at these words? 

I’ve heard similar sayings before, but I have always been annoyed with not having a perfectly tidy house, believe or not.  I like things in their places, being organized, and having my work and play time separated in my day.  I find it hard to relax if there is something I know that has to be done.  I am a worker. Probably one for perfection.  And obviously, that just can’t be attained.  I’m often rushed, feeling cramped for time, running late or something or other always because I try to tackle so many chores and items on my list every day.  But, I was hit with a reality while I was vacuuming tonight.  I always like to enjoy resting and getting my break after I send the kids to bed, because, in all honesty, it’s the one time of day I can get all my cleaning done, and it stays that way…. Long enough for everyone to be sleeping. Ha!  See the irony?  Ahhhh… I have reached a point where I am getting tired.  Of cleaning.  All the time.  I don’t want my life to be spent keeping house the way a maid would.  I want to be MOM.  There are struggles as a perfectionist personality.  Believe me.  And so I am grateful to God for His Holy Spirit. Especially when I am vacuuming at 10:30 at night. 

It’s true: I have inherited the same tidiness from my mom.  I remember always cleaning.  It seemed like we always had to keep house, and I often wished mom would just JOIN us.  I don’t want to be like that where I feel I am always missing my down time with my kids.  I have to make a mental and conscious decision to begin building my dream home. It isn’t the dream home built with brand new materials. Or one being perfectly new and fresh and clean.  Or one where it appears I have all my “stuff together.”  This past year, a friend revealed to our group of ladies that she fears what others will think of her, her mothering/parenting, etc., if she had friends over because she can’t always have the house in perfect order.  What a truth bomb.  Don’t we all face the same pressure?  We worry so much about how we are viewed because of the state of the house.  My question is “Why?”  Why is that so easy a trap to fall into?
First, we are the catalysts for the hope of the future, aka The KIDS.  Why WOULDN’T the evil one want to tear us down?  Make us feel like it’s too hard to raise a family? And second, we live in a culture where materialism is at its finest.  We often without thinking about it even, have the inert push to become Stepford Wives.  We want to “appear” to have everything.  Some of us don’t have these pressures, but I know many moms, and have seen MANY different personalities, Type Bs are great friends to Type As.  Some of us are just natural-born organizer Type A women who have to have order to manage all the things we take on, like myself. And that leads to a stressful situation sometimes. 


Source
Back to the opening title, what makes a dream home such? Is it the perfection, the nice, fresh house all the time? AS Christian mothers we must refocus our attention to one thing: raising our children to be happy and healthy.  I love the book A Mother’s Rule of Life. (I have it listed in my resource section.) We must designate a certain time for certain things each day, making the time with the kids and meals the priority:  even if we finish nothing else.  Be HAPPY AT HOME.  I recently shared a fantastic article from Above Rubies on loving to be home on my Facebook page (so be sure to read it if you haven’t!) And, so, we are left with leaving the house in shambles momentarily--- to have fun and quality time with our little ones (and teens too) ---and we can come back to the mess.
Isn’t a dream home a place simply where the food is cooking, the kids are playing, and you are happy? And when I say happy, I am not talking about having nice things.  I am talking about being able to read to the babies, and craft with the older kids, and enjoy life.  We barely have enough time in the day to imagine doing these things amongst the business, right?  Wrong.  It is our CHOICE of where to spend our TIME.  Just do it!  Can it be challenging, coming out of an old routine and attempting another one?  Yes. I get it.  I’ve been there. Lots of times.  You can make a master plan where you designate certain activities with your precious kids and NO MATTER WHAT, YOU STICK TO IT.  You will find that after some time, it will become what you ALL are looking forward to, and it became the priority for everyone.  
Build your dream home.  Leave the mess there.  Gather everyone around before bedtime to help reorder the house.  When you all go to bed, you will have peace and memories that you want to do again the next day.  And slowly, after some time, you will have built your dream home.  That place you call home where the cooking makes you happy.  Where the kids make you happier.  And where the mess isn’t such a big deal.   The house we wish to build is not of wood and nails, but of faith and virtues, hope and charity.

Remember, the catalogue picture of a dream home isn’t what makes it a dream.  It’s the peace and happiness inside that makes it all count.  Take a breath, and begin building.  <3

"Wherever God has put you, that is your vocation. It is not what we do, but how much love we put into it." ~ St. Theresa of Calcutta

JMJ

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