Being Transformed

I read Sara's post Transforming in the past couple days. (It took that long to digest it. In fact, I think I'm still working on it!) There were many things that stood out to me, but one main thing said, in short, "God has a plan for my day. He wants to help me run my household. Pray that He will reveal that plan."

I've been discussing with my mom quite a bit lately about my feeling of being overwhelmed with the housework and other things that need to be done around our home. Even simple things like brushing Hannah's teeth before bed and getting the dishes done sometimes feel insurmountable, especially on days when the girls are unhappy or I have to be gone most of the day. Irene had some good advice the other day to focus on three things at a time, but that leaves so many other things undone that I can hardly live with myself some days. My mom's advice? "The dishes aren't done? Who cares"?! Well, I do! But, my memories as a child are happy ones. Our house was not always clean, but my mom was always available to me. I'd much rather be available to my children than to my children's messes!

The past couple of days I've been praying for God to wake me up when I need to get up in order to spend a little time reading my Bible and focusing before doing our morning routine. My girls get up anywhere from 7am to 10am depending on the night we've had, so it's hard for me to know when to set an alarm. I am most definitely a fan of sleeping in, but even five minutes makes such a difference in the perspective I start with. Rather than running to Hannah's room half-asleep and begging her to sleep some more, I've been centered, happy, and ready to see her and start our day.

Bear with me - those of you who have a regular morning quiet time. I've known for some time that this would help me, but it sure is hard to tell that voice to shut up when it says just 20 minutes more sleep will make all the difference!

I'm making other changes as well. Hannah is moving to a later nap time. This is cutting way down on fights over naps. The morning also no longer revolves around getting dishes done. They're still there at noon, and instead of fighting with Hannah over them, I sit down and have a nice interactive time with her at breakfast.

I also learned a new secret this week about God. I hesitate to share it here, because it's still a tiny seed in my heart. Somebody's negative opinion might kill it off. But it's working for me. And life is good. And God is good in every circumstance. And maybe down the road I'll share.

And, there's good news on the house situation, although there still is no renter for our town house. Keep praying! Nothing's definite yet. I'll wait to share.

And, we get to go on vacation in less than a week.

And...okay. I'm done.