A Day in the Life of a Work at Home Mom

Kelly from Kelly's Korner is doing a "Week in the Life" series on her blog this week and I thought I would join because I've actually been thinking a lot about this lately.

The last year has BY FAR been one of the most challenging years for me in so many ways. Sure, I don't have to drive an hour commute twice a day every day anymore and exploit my road rage tendencies. I can wear my pajamas or holey yoga pants or even my underwear if I want to at my desk. But anyone who is a stay-at-home or work-at-home mom knows that it is hard work and I have certainly learned to respect that even more. I'm not going to argue the pros and cons of moms who work out of the home vs. stay-at-home-moms vs. work-at-home moms because let's face it, it is all hard. I just know that for me personally, I have been pushed to limits I didn't even know existed and I have not always met those challenges with grace.

I struggle on a daily basis to find balance and learn that there are some things you have to let go. We had an awesome service at church yesterday and Revelations 2:4 keeps going through my head - Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. He also posed the question that if we were to ask our spouse to examine our heart over the last week, what would they see? Ouch. We can continually serve with our hands and our feet, but it is all for not if the desire to serve and love others is not coming from the heart and a deep relationship with our Father. He should be our first love.

Some days I am certain that it is only by the grace of God that I even make it through the day only to wake up and do it all wrong again the next day. Both of my "paying" jobs are very deadline driven and I have two small children that demand a lot of attention, all of which creates a dangerous cocktail of insanity. I am stressed. I am tired. I am edgy. I am anxious. I am angry. I am a lot of things that I should not be. His grace is sufficient and He always carries me through, yet I get so caught up in the race that I lose sight of the One who is cheering for me every step of the way. 


I received an email last week from a friend titled Motherhood as a Mission Field. Many of you may have also seen it. The whole article is eye-opening, but here is an excerpt that struck home:


So, if mothers are strategically situated to impact missions so greatly, why do we see so little coming from it?  I think the answer to this is quite simple: sin. Discontent, pettiness, selfishness, resentment. Christians often feel like the right thing to do is to be ashamed about what we have. We hear that quote of Jim Elliot’s and think that we ought to sell our homes and move to some place where they need the gospel.

But I’d like to challenge you to look at it differently. Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now. Cheerfully wipe the nose for the fiftieth time today. Make dinner again for the people who don’t like the green beans. Laugh when your plans are thwarted by a vomiting child. Lay yourself down for the people here with you, the people who annoy you, the people who get in your way, the people who take up so much of your time that you can’t read anymore. Rejoice in them. Sacrifice for them. Gain that which you cannot lose in them.

It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.

 
God loves the little offerings. Given in faith, that plate of PB&J’s will feed thousands. Given in faith, those presents on Christmas morning will bring delight to more children than you can count. Offered with thankfulness, your work at home is only the beginning. Your laundry pile, selflessly tackled daily, will be used in the hands of God to clothe many. Do not think that your work does not matter. In God’s hands, it will be broken, and broken, and broken again, until all who have need of it have eaten and are satisfied. And even then, there will be leftovers.
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I admit that some days I find myself wishing that I could go back to the office job and go to Starbuck's on the corner and have lunch in peace with my co-workers and work normal hours. Yet as chaotic as things may be, I have two choices - to feel as though I am losing the battle and let worries overcome my life or to take this opportunity I have been given to disciple my children everyday and to serve others and serve them well. It truly saddens me to think that my children have not been given my best because I let work, finances and things that don't really matter gain most of my time and energy.

I have been trying to manage my time better, though that usually means I work a lot at night after the boys have gone to bed. I decided that some days it is okay for me to take a nap when they do when I went to bed at 3 a.m. the night before. I simply cannot be everything to everyone and I just have to do the best I can. My house is not spotless. I don't always get to take a shower everyday. The laundry doesn't always get put away. Calls and texts go unanswered. My goal is to no longer just try to survive the day, but to revel in each God given moment, to laugh at the unexpected, to find goodness when it seems there is none and to keep pursuing my first love so that I may more fully love others.

I didn't actually outline what my day looks like, but I'll save that for another post. This explains a lot. :)