Be that one person

Lately I’ve been realizing that I really need to get organized! (I probably should have realized that a lot sooner, I know..) But when I think about everything that I’ve just recently added new to my schedule and life in general, it can just overwhelm my mind sometimes! It hasn’t happened to me that often yet, but last night it’s like I physically felt all of my responsibilities weighing on top of me. My husband, of almost a month, came down the steps to the kitchen where I was putting dishes away (another endless responsibility) and asked, “Have you done wash in a while? I have no jeans upstairs.” My mind instantly remembered that I had put a load in about an hour before we went to church and in the busyness of getting ready to go to church and clean up from dinner and get Kali ready, I must have not heard it beep and forgotten to put it in the dryer!

So that’s not a huge deal, and I went and put them in the dryer and Abe got his jeans this morning before going to work. (Poor guy!) But for some reason it just dawned on me that now I understand what it means to be “mom” and “wife” and the lady of a house. In the space of a month, I have gone from:

-Having just a little room at my parents house, to owning a whole house with Abe.

-Doing dishes on Sunday afternoons, to doing dishes a minimum of 4x a day or else watching them sit there because no one else will do them. (Abe will occasionally though.)

-Throwing my clothes in a hamper and magically seeing them appear folded on my bed, to doing mine, Abe’s, and Kali’s wash all the time.

-Living with no one under 18, to stopping what I’m doing every 5 minutes to either take Kali to go potty (she’s in the process of being potty trained, so we are CONSTANTLY trying to go so that she doesn’t have an   accident) or answer endless questions, or fix endless toys.

-Seeing a messy floor or no towels in the bathroom and thinking “Mom will get it,” to knowing that it’s up to me if I want it fixed.

-Casually wondering what’s for dinner tonight, to intensely concentrating on figuring something out to make for dinner.

I could probably go on and on! And add to that, having a full time job, extra outside piano students, being the church and choir pianist, and our house being a fixer-upper! It’s a lot. J It makes me so thankful for my mom. She homeschooled five kids, kept the house going and food on the table and clothes in our drawers. It seems so basic, but I’m now wondering, how did she do that?? And she STILL finds ways to take care of us, on a different level now. I came home from my honeymoon to find beautiful curtains hung in both mine and Abe’s and Kali’s bedrooms. I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that, and she took care of it! Our bed was made and our house was clean, with even some added cute touches—the table set beautifully with a candle in the middle! Another way she still is there for me: I had told my mom that I was trying to potty-train Kali but don’t know what I’m doing, and when we came over to mom’s house, she had bought cute Dora underwear for Kali to start wearing….all the motivation she needed! It’s been going basically pretty smooth!

There’s tons of other ways that my mom has helped me in this transition to being the mom of my own family. She listens, she sympathizes, and she laughs with me. She tells me her own stories and little by little I have been seeing the quiet faith that she had to have to raise our family. It amazes and inspires me! We have plenty of crazy stories about mom, but I’m beginning to think…how could she not be crazy with five kids like us?? I love the quote from Abraham Lincoln, “Everything I am, I owe to my angel mother.” I can definitely relate! She was my #1 supporter when I was dating and then engaged to Abe. She is the one who makes me able to face life’s problems and difficulties. Because she believes in me, I know I can make it. And THAT is what I want to be for MY kids, too. I want to pass down to Kali the godly heritage that I have in my own mom!

So…if your life is pressing in on you too and you don’t think you can do it, find that person in your life that gives you courage, and keep going! And then make sure that you are that person in someone else’s life too, to encourage them to never give up!