Finding Normal Week 4: Remembering the Reason for it

Cooking, cleaning, shopping, tidying up, scheduling, planning, stressing, being a housewife is a truly exhausting task. Think about it. You want to have a perfectly lovely little home. Clean and tidy. Everything in it’s place. I delicious hot meal on the table for your family. You want to do all these wonderful things. But it is exhausting and stressful and overwhelming at times. Sometimes we let the overwhelming aspects get to us. We turn our everyday lives into mindless little tasks that are honestly just time consuming and depressing. So what do you do? It is in these terrible moments of wanting to give up and feeling like a failure because you can’t keep up that you need to remember the reason behind it all. Glorifying God. Literally everything we do should be done to the glory of God. The thing is, when we look at it that way we end up finding so much more joy in the things we do. Cleaning, cooking, keeping the house together may not seem to be a big deal in the eyes of the Father. I mean, does He really care if our house is clean? The answer is yes. He cares because it is how we serve Him. How we have a testimony of service. It’s not about the clean house. It is about the mindset behind it. It is about wanting to serve our family through our efforts. Wanting to create a sanctuary and a place to recharge. A place of peace. I am not saying in anyway that if your house is messy you aren’t pleasing God. What I am saying is that when we put even the most menial task in a perspective of serving God it can completely alter our attitude towards that task. Instead of being another mundane task it turns into a joy. The real reason behind our every action should be glorifying God! I know, I know, we all hate housework even the most organized neat freak gets tired of the constant need a house has. So what do we do? well here are just a few ideas of some things that may help you get in the right mindset.

Play Music

Music is just wonderful. It has the strangest ability to completely alter anyone mood and can turn a boring chore into a fun activity. So turn on some upbeat tunes or some good praise and worship music and get to work!

Stay Positive

The biggest downfall we have is our own negativity. Being positive is the key essential element of accomplishing anything! So keep a positive mindset. Even if it isn’t a task that is your favorite try to find something positive about it and if that is just impossible then try looking at it in a different perspective. For instance I hate hanging up clothes I don’t know why I just do. So when I get really, “I totally don’t want to do this” I look at it in a different light and say, “It is a blessing that I have enough clothes that I can hang them up. That also usually helps me clean out my closet because then I just think of all the people that could use the stuff I have (win-win). Point is stay positive. Try not to dread your tasks and just find little joys in them instead.

Worst things First

Do the things you hate the most first. Having the most dreaded item off your list makes all the other things seem so much more enjoyable.

Be Thankful

Honestly when it all comes down to it, the cooking, cleaning, chores, everything is one of our greatest blessings. It is how we show the love and servitude of Christ to our families. It is how we become the Proverbs 31 women God intended us to be.

I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have! I hope it has helped and encouraged as well. Let me know what you think! Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to like and share on your favorite social media site!