My home is lived in, it looks like it, and I’m ok with that…most days.

I have a secret… and I feel as though I need to let a few of you in on it. It has to do with a little-known secret in our home. It’s a pretty big deal because what I am about to expose to you is the giant elephant that sits in the corner of nearly every moms group discussion that any mother has ever taken part in….are you ready?…deep breath…here goes… I don’t make my bed every day! I don’t…and…I didn’t even do it as a child…and I don’t feel a lick of angst about it, most days…but on those days, that aren’t most, that unmade bed – the one I didn’t get to before dropping the kids off to school, and rushing to work stands as Goliath in my way screaming to me, ‘I’m just not good enough, I don’t have what it takes like all the other moms do.’ It lends me to feelings that suggest that I’m just not doing all I should. It drags me down, in the suffocating thoughts of comparison to those other moms around me that seem to effortlessly have this all under control.

Are you feeling a little weird that I just confessed this to all in the social realm? Are you wondering why I would even admit this? It’s ok, I get it – stick with me. There are so many of my fellow moms out there who possess this same hidden shame, and get stuck in the same drowning thoughts of inadequacy. Maybe it isn’t the bed that doesn’t get made, maybe it’s the laundry that gets washed, but never folded, or the dishes that sit dirty in the sink for two days or the floors that don’t get swept daily, but the dog does lick up the noticeable crumbs…and you’re good with it for the moment…whatever it is, we all have something that isn’t getting done, and that thing that isn’t getting done is causing us stress, and making us feel like we aren’t a good enough mom because our home is not as spotless as a 1950’s house mom’s was kept, and if we were all open and honest enough to admit that our homes aren’t spotless we would all feel a whole lot better about ourselves and each other because we’d realize – we are all a lot more alike than we thought.

I find it a little funny when I stop to consider all the stress keeping a clean home creates. We run around crazy trying to keep things picture perfect because we feel like we have to but all our family really wants is our focus. We look at our homes and we see this overwhelming mess which in most cases isn’t nearly as awful as we make it out to be. In reality their clothes are laundered, our floors are swept, our surfaces are dusted, our counters are wiped down, it is clean, but it is also lived in and that is the part we forget and skip over. We have these handsome men and beautiful children that scurry around living life and interacting with their environment and clutter happens, messes are made, and we need to accept that it is ok. We only have these precious humans around our home to make it messy for so long, and before we know it we will long for these days and the opportunity to clean after them.

It’s time to Mom-UP

We must realize that these beloved little ones, and this man that we are blessed to have call us a wife need us – not so much to keep our home in perfect order and ready for company at every moment, but more importantly to interact with them, have conversations with them, play with them, take part in making the messes by building the tent, making the playdough, baking the cookies, digging the hole, or simply enjoying a non-rushed and relaxed moment. They need us, they desperately need our attention so we can mother these little beings and be the wife to our husband that we have been called to be, and running around the house a stressed-out mess because we just saw a fluff of dog hair roll across the floor is not creating the moments of interaction that they are in need of and searching for.

Take a step

Today, I hope to encourage you with this moment of transparency. Take a deep breath. Stop. Look at what you have around you. Hear the voices echoing down the halls of your home. Take time to LIVE in this moment. Forget the work you have to do. Seize this day. We have been blessed. NOW is your time – be present with your family. Our present mind is what we will be remembered for, not our unmade bed.

Proverbs 14:1 says,

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

We are building a home. We are supporting our husbands to lead it. We are training our children in the way they should go. It is work, hard work, intentional work, but it is a work that we are called to and equipped for. One that we cannot allow to intimidate us through thoughts of comparison and feeling overwhelmed.

Proverbs 18:10 tells us,

The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

Take a moment and turn these beautiful scriptures into a prayer over our homes. Let us ask our Heavenly Father to help us in our focus to be the wise woman who builds her home by inviting Jesus Christ into it and his help that we would allow Him to be our strong tower in these moments of exhaustion, and weariness.

Let us start today out right – Choose Him.