"Would you judge of the lawfulness of pleasure? Take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes away the relish for spiritual things - in short, anything that increases the strength of your body over your mind - that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in and of itself."Doesn't leave a whole lot of maneuvering room, does it?
I, who have so often determined my value from what I accomplish or how productive I am, am a full-time mother of a 3-month-old. Nathan, the major usage of my time and energy, doesn't demonstrate the massive amount of time he takes. It was helpful to have Trent home sick this last Monday; I had an objective observer to tell me at the end of the day that the only time I wasn't working or doing something else was when I was feeding Nathan.
All too often I get to the end of a day and wonder where it went... I have to limit my expectations for each day drastically. Right now I have laundry to fold (it's been in the basket since last Friday), more laundry to do, checkbook to balance, bills to pay, a budget to calculate, records to file, rooms to clean and Christmas presents to wrap. Which of these will I do today? I'd like to clean, but I think I'll be limited to wrapping presents. Yesterday it was all I could do to send out Christmas letters - I only just made it to the post office by 4:30 p.m.
My sense of self-worth is having to find a different, more appropriate source than my level of productivity. In the meantime, I can't find words in the English language to convey how inept I feel - especially when I do almost no cleaning or cooking here at my parents'. I'm trying to stave off thoughts of how horrible I'll feel when we're in our own house and I'm still this unproductive.
Philippians 4:6-7; I know, God; I know...
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