Seems simple enough. To borrow a line from Popeye “I yam what I yam”.
But sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. As I try to navigate this road of discipleship with my children, homeschooling them and leading them, figuring out how to be a mom and keep my house clean, I sometimes feel like I’m not enough.
I read books, blogs, articles, watch movies to help me try to figure it all out. I get some great ideas, but sometimes I just feel bad. I hear folks talk about how they’re teaching their kids history and I think “I haven’t even really started that yet” or I hear the fun activities they do for unit studies and I can’t help but think “I wish I had the energy/time/imagination to do that stuff with my kids.” And I wonder if I’m failing them. Sure they did fantastic on their required standardized tests this year, but for some reason that doesn’t feel good enough some days.
It is so hard not to compare yourself to every other homeschooling mom, working mom, stay at home mom out there. But you know…I’ll bet there is something undone at their house. I’ll be they have dirty socks under their beds, or maybe there is a fine layer of dust on their book shelf, oooh! or maybe they hide their dirty dishes in their oven when people come to visit. The truth is, as much as we’d like to, no one has it all together. Even the families on the covers of magazines.
I have be concentrating on not being “perfect” but in having realistic expectations for myself, my boys and our home. As much as I would love to have a spotless house…with 4 boys I’ve decided it’s just not going to happen. Truth be told, there are days when I wonder why I even try…and then I see a mouse run across the floor and I remember. I can’t do every cool unit study out there we don’t have time and I don’t have the energy. So for now, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing (after all it is working).
We’ve made certain things a priority for our family, our home and our boys. Those are the things we focus on and we do the other stuff when we can. We’ll work it all in somewhere. But our priority is not to have them know every little fact about world history before they get to 5th grade.
There are some days that it’s easier said than done. I still walk away some days feeling like I’m missing something and failing some how, but I “yam what I yam” and for right now that has to be enough.
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Stories from the Rosfeld family
When I would feel this way….six or seven times every day….Craig would bring me back into focus, to what I should seek to bring to the boys and that was to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. It wasn’t about math, algebra, science, literature; we taught those so that our boys would have every resource to love the Lord their God. And it is still and will always be my prayer for them, their wives, our grandchildren and on and on till the Lord brings me home. Btw, the covers on “those” magazines drive me crazy…the articles, too.
You are very acceptable. It is the devil trying to make you feel like a failure. Fight those thoughts with scripture not with reason. When you are discouraged it is hard to have a “Mary heart in a Martha” world. by the way thats a really good book.:) Also think hard on Phillipians 4:8. And people with clean houses that live near the country still have mice. Like thoughts in our head that discourage us. They come in but don’t belong there.