Remember When...

Someone recently asked me "How do I get it all done with six children"? I actually get asked this question quite a bit. Why anyone would look my way and think I get half of what needs to be done, done, is beyond me. The answer is quite simple. Are you ready for the answer? Its actually quite profound...I don't!!

Three years ago when asked this question I would have given someone a detailed plan on how I organized my day. The funniest thing (some of you can attest to this) is I used to have a detailed daily schedule hanging on my fridge for each member of our family. When I tell you detailed I mean detailed. This schedule gave an account for every fifteen minutes if needed. I'm thinkin that's a little much...don't you? Some may think that the Lord grows us into that. I'm thinkin thank you God that you grew me out of that.

Please don't misunderstand my heart on this matter. For some, that kind of organization may be exactly what they need and could possibly be an excellent tool. For me, however, it was a miniature god.

For years in my walk with the Lord I was obsessed with getting it right. In my mind there was a right personality type and a wrong one. If I, being totally honest here, would have looked into my life today, I would have thought....that girl needs to get her act together. The problem with my obsessive organization was that I thought had all of the answers. The problem with thinking I had all the answers is I had no need, or no desperation for God.

I think I deceived myself into thinking my togetherness was because of God's power in my life, but really there was a lot of self sufficient power/checklist in my life. When the Lord gave us our sweet Tinslee I began to break.

I guess we all have our breaking point. By myself, I thought I could manage four children, a husband, and all that comes with that. I had expectation's of what my life needed to look like and I did everything in my power to make it happen...and I succeeded to a certain extent.

While pregnant with Tinslee I just couldn't keep up the "SuperMom" act any longer. The Lord used multiple situations, circumstances, people, and failures to show me I didn't have to keep it up. Thank God for my failures because it was is through them that I discovered truth. I began to realize this "SuperMom" person I was trying to measure up to didn't exist.

SuperMom misses out on precious fast moving moments with her husband and kids because she is so busy. Supermom is wasting life chasing the impossible. Supermom believes the lies of her enemy, herself and the Jones' who tell her perfection can be achieved, and if not perfection well then something very close.

After discovering this truth, I've been on a journey of learning to trust God for what he has for me in each day. When I surrender to that my days don't always look like I think they should. I've had to rid myself of my unrealistic expectations. Some of the organizing that used to be so important isn't so important anymore.

In ten, five, or even one year from now I am convinced I won't remember the organizing, cleaning or mindless tasks that I do. I had heard this said so many times before and even in the midst of my blind dysfunction would have given that statement an amen. For some reason now it just hits my heart. I am so thankful it does. Ya see I don't want to miss one precious moment with my husband or our six children for the sake of having it or appearing to have it all together.

There is a country song by Alan Jackson that I love. The song is called "Remember When". In the song he talks about his journey with his wife. He sings of when their love was new and they gave their hearts to each other forever. He sings of times where they came together, fell apart and then broke each others hearts. He sings of a time when little feet were the music they danced to week to week. In this they found love and trust and vowed to never give it up. He reminisces about a day when thirty seemed so old and now it's just a stepping stone. He then reminds his bride of their promise that when the children grew up and move away they won't be sad, but glad for the life they had.

I love this song. I am able to hear it and place H and I right in the song. It reminds me of so much of our life, as I'm sure it does for many others. We are not empty-nesters and won't be for some time, but when we are I want to be glad for all the life we've had. When we are old and gray and Lord willing reminiscing together I want to have precious memories that are not full of regret. I never want to be so busy with things that are never going to impact eternity that I miss out on the things that will.

Some days I just want to get through the day and get to bed. Other days I tell myself just make it two more hours, and then it's date night with my man. There will come a day when I will want to remember the life I am living right now. Right now, in this very moment, I'm living the good ol' days that we hear our grand parents talking about. Did you catch that? Us young mama's, we are going to want to remember these crazy never ending days. I don't want to amen that statement without it really hitting my heart. I pray for God to give my heart the strength and truth it needs to be present in the now. My beautiful crazy messy now.