All things are possible! Even housework.

Ok, how's my new year's resolution about blogging more frequently looking? Pretty unresolved. Shivers, we are half way through February already and I am lagging here. It feels like there has been a couple of months packed into the last month alone... School holidays finishing up with lots of trips to the beach and times with family. Helping to throw a biggish 70th birthday for my Dad which was truly a beautiful day. The girls started a new school year and it's already week 3 of term 1! Plus throw into the mix the fact that Shane was offered and accepted, an interim youth pastor position for six months, and I am doing my best to partner him in that role as much as possible. Life marches on!

 I am certainly finding (painfully aware after reading my last post!), despite my noble ambitions and hopes for myself and my housekeeping that there are no quick fixes. I wish I could change as quickly as I could write a lovely post about what I hope to become! I guess having a vision is a good place to start...

I have been reflecting recently though how keeping the household in order (or better put, TRYING, to keep it in order!) is something of a thorn in the flesh for me. Ok, not to spiritualise it...wait, too late I am going to do it, because that is what I do! :0

I love reading, writing, talking, contemplating all the possibilities, the future, life, spirituality all that. I could be happy just in a little cloud of reverie about all these things. But, then I have to do the dishes and sweep the floor and change nappies and answer a million 'why' questions, yes Hudson just entered that phase. I think if I didn't have this mundane, everyday life begging for my attention constantly through the day I would be in danger of, yes I will admit it, becoming a spiritual snob. Often I feel like my everyday life is getting in the way of my spiritual development... But what I am realising is that , that kind of thinking is very misled. If we think our 'enlightenment' on the deeper issues of life will happen better in a setting different to the one we are in the middle of, we are very much deceived. I didn't fully grasp one of Joyce Meyer's favourite lines until more recently; 'if you can't get authority over a sink full of dirty dishes, what makes you think you can get authority over any devil in hell?!' Gosh I love her! So profound. So simple, so TRUE! If I am feeling overwhelmed by my housework, by the dishes in the sink, if they are causing me to curl up and cry, well, then that is really the battle I need to be facing head on more than any other isn't it? And from there, we can work our way upwards onto bigger things.

I think this truth is so important. So easily missed. But I don't want to miss the vital truth that God has placed me in these exact circumstances with these exact responsibilities for a SPECIFIC purpose and that to run from these responsibilities to other things which seem more appealing, more fun, more intellectual, more IMPORTANT, means I am going to miss the perfectly set up training ground he has created for me to grow. He knows the best conditions, he knows the best way to get the best out of me. For me, right now, that means being a wife, being a mother, looking after the household, making food, cleaning up, going shopping etc. etc. Mundane, everyday, boring? Maybe not.

I am going to embrace these tasks rather than try to shirk them, to face the challenges head on. To 'attack the hills' as Shane says to me about jogging! Don't shy from them, face them head on! Become excellent at them. Do it unto God! Every little job becomes an act of worship, an act of thanks. Every job becomes something that forms my habits and shapes my character. I know He is using these things to mold me into what he has created me to be. It doesn't look exciting on the outside, but he sees the inside. And hey, its not all housework and nappy changes, I do have the great privilege of having other outlets and avenues to share and serve in outside the home, and for that too I am very grateful.

Where I am right now is the best place for me. I have a long way to go to gain full 'authority' over all the things entrusted to me, but I want to get there, little by little, with the grace of God giving me strength I know I will conquer those dishes once and for all!

'I can do ALL things (even the housework!!) through Christ who gives me strength'