Sabbath

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I'm sitting on my front porch watching my 3 girls ride bikes, my baby boy dozing in his bouncer at my feet and dinner in the crock pot (smells delish, by the way).  This is how life should be, enjoying your family on the day the Lord commanded us to rest.

Yesterday, I spent 5 hours cleaning my house and doing laundry.  Sounds like a lot of time, but for 3 of that I had 3 kids running amok and the baby wanted to nurse quite a bit.  Oh, and I did get in a 30 min work out :)  Needless to say, it's not looking the same today but you know what?  Who cares? My bathrooms are clean, beds are made and dishes loaded in the dishwasher.  I have a tendency to be OCD, but on my terms.  That means that the house should be de-cluttered and can be done at the expense of having horrible looking cupboards and drawers which is where the clutter gets stashed.  Out of sight, out of mind. I have a "new" friend who lives down the street from me.  She is wonderful and has a beautiful perspective on life and scripture.  She and her hubs have twin boys 6 months older than Ashlynn and she is in love with "Jack and Finn".  I've been following her new blog Soul Refinery and she has totally sent me in a tail spin with her perspective, from motherhood to being a wife to just life in general. It's helped me to see that I don't need to be perfect.  Life is what happens when I'm trying to keep the house clean and that isn't the legacy I want to leave.  So now, after another convicting blog post by my friend Libby, I will ditch the Pinterest, keep the house sanitized and relish in life.  We have 5 kids now.  1 has his own place, the other 4 are under 8.  In roughly 20 years Josh and I could potentially be alone and today will be a bittersweet memory that we will wish we had back. 

God only wants from us what we have.  He isn't waiting on me to be perfect, or have more time, or for my kids to be older.  Each moment of my day is to be lived with a focus on how God is using me, or wants to use me.  Is He speaking to me and I'm not listening?  Is He telling me to do something, to go a certain direction or take a leap outside my comfort zone?  I need to listen more closely and act more directly.  I need to move when He speaks because in Exodus 3:12 He tells Moses when Moses doubts being able to rescue the Israelites out of Egypt "...I will be with you." If He sends us, He will never forsake us.