Today is the end of a week. A very busy week after all of the Holiday celebrations are over. I have been being selfish this week. I am never selfish. I never do anything for myself, I only do things that benefit my children and husband and house. I'm sure there are ways I am selfish and don't know it, but on the outside I don't realize it. I am trying to be more selfish. Not in a bad way but a way to better my family and myself.
Let me explain. I am always doing things for others. I am not very good at saying 'NO' when asked to help with events at church and other places. I felt it was my duty, not realizing I was neglecting my main duty. God puts us all in different areas because we have different talents. I am in NO WAY a perfect parent, and I would never claim to be, but I do feel that God has called me to be a mom. Period. My job on this earth while I can, is to teach them about the Lord, number one. Teach them morals, values, caring, kindness, how to have a servants heart and how to be a useful and good Christian leader in this self centered world. I don't know if I am doing it right or well, but I pray daily for God's help and guidance, and I trust Him.
So I have started saying 'NO'. It's not that I don't want to be involved outside of the house, but we are backing down from extra curricular activities for each kid, skimming the fat off of the unnecessary, redirecting what is necessary and replanning our days and nights. Simplifying our time away from home. We are striving for more family time, more time as a collective unit to prepare these children for the future. My husband works weird and different hours daily. It's hard to plan ahead. Sometimes it feels like he is never home. So when he is home in the evening we want to take advantage of it. We don't want to be at meetings, or events. We want to be home teaching them about what it means to be a Godly family. Selfish? You decide.
I have also been selfish for myself lately. Over the years, simply being at home with the kids and having four children, I have increasingly gained more weight. So this year my vow was now that the kids are older and can help out more with things around the house, it's my time to get healthy and back into shape, so I can live longer and healthier first for Him and for them. So my purging has been pushed to the side so I could spend my fleetingly free moments at the gym I joined.
I did not completely give up however. My main goals for this year is to get healthy, get organized, simplify, get closer to my family, and especially bring my family closer to God. (Not in that order).
Here are a few things I have gotten accomplished. While putting away Christmas decorations, it dawned on me that I didn't put out half of what we own. I never do. So I made a command decision to get rid of anything we didn't use that didn't have sentimental value. It was actually quite a bit. I rearranged our living room, bringing up our long lost couch from the basement that we have been missing, and in doing so purged many items.
I had to move our homeschool bookshelf, which was OVERFLOWING with books. Since it's our second year, I know what we use and don't use, so I got rid of a big box of books, and since the kids got new board games for Christmas, we got rid of all of our preschool puzzles and other games from our game cabinet. I have been holding onto all of my old VHS movies, because we have a DVD/VCR combo - but the VCR unit quit working two years ago. I kept having the intention of fixing it, but it hasn't gotten done, so I cleared out about 60 VHS movies to get rid of to make room for all of the DVD's that have been lying around. (Our family is a big movie family). I also have spent some time organizing paper work for my business and my home, and though I have a long way to go - it was nice to get a bunch moved off my dining room table.
I have a loooong way to go in many areas of my life, but little by little and with God's help, we will get this done. It's important, and one day I can't wait to look around my house and see nothing but the most simple necessities and my favorite people and my vision of a Godly house.
Good luck!
