The Struggle to Do What We Should

There are a lot of struggles that we go through as homemakers but one struggle that comes to us all is the feeling of apathy. Before starting this blog I was extremely motivated in my homemaking.  Like all homemakers, I have my ups and downs with how good of a job I am doing—how clean the house is, how well I have stuck to the budget, the kinds of meals I have made for dinner (no pancakes), how much time I have spent praying, exercising, or with my children, and the kind of mood that I have been in when my husband returns from work.  I have my moments (noticed they are measured in moments) when I am completely on top of things and doing everything that I should be doing.  But then, after about one week of this, I hit a wall and the struggle begins. I wake up in the morning and I just want to sit on the couch in my bathrobe, drinking coffee, and reading a book while the children play around me.  I don’t want to wash those dishes that I have just eaten off of, I don’t want to change the sheets, clean the bathrooms, wash the dirty mirrors, sweep the kitchen floor, or make dinner.  I don’t want to do anything. I believe that, to varying degrees, this is a struggle that we all go through.  Unfortunately, the Internet is a huge helper in promoting this apathy.  “I’m just going to check facebook one time,” “I wonder if I have an email.  I didn’t ten minutes ago but someone might have sent me an urgent message since then, I should check.”  “I’m just going to watch this show on Netflix for ten minutes, just a little break.” All of these things are time wasters and they are extremely good at sucking us in.  Though, have you ever noticed that as soon as we waste the time on these things and give in we feel extremely annoyed with ourselves? This then puts us in a bad mood when our husbands get home. 

On the flip side, perhaps we are not feeling apathetic. Perhaps we are actually extremely motivated and excited about something and therefore, “I have to tell someone about my excitement” or my latest one “I’m going to write a blog post about this one, I will sit down and write it now” (even though the beds aren’t made the dishes aren’t clean, and the toilets need to be scrubbed).  I find it extremely ironic that ever since I have started a blog on the importance of homemaking, I haven’t really wanted to do much homemaking.  Then again, maybe we decide to start a project.  “I have been meaning to refinish that desk for a long time and it will make my bedroom look great, thereby making a cozier home.” Yet, while we are doing the project that dishes are piled in the sink and the house is a disaster. (This is a HUGE struggle for me.) It is so much easier to do something we are excited about, something different, than to do the same thing, week after week. But then, perhaps no one else has these struggles, perhaps it is just me, but I don’t think so.

 

I believe that Satan attacks us where we are most vulnerable and in the places where we have the potential to do good.  Every time that I am doing my best in the home and creating a comfortable, orderly, and loving environment for my family, I immediately do not want to do the work anymore. As soon as I am selfless, I want to stop and be selfish and focus on the things that interest me and that I find entertaining.  I am not saying that we can’t ever do something just for ourselves, there are times that we have to or we will lose our minds.  The problem arises when our choice to do that thing leads to failure in other areas of our lives. This is a battle that the homemaker is constantly fighting.

How can we conquer these struggles? The most important way to conquer this is through prayer.  When we are sitting down for the second cup of coffee, knowing that we really should be getting up and making the beds, we need to pray for God to give us the strength to do stand up and walk to the bedroom.  Offer up the struggles to God, make them your sacrifice to Him and ask Him to sanctify your work for His glory.  Another thing that I have found helpful is having a routine.  If it is Monday, and I normally vacuum, sweep, and mop on Mondays, but I REALLY don’t want to, if nothing else happens that day, I at least know that I have to accomplish those things.  I have found a routine to be extremely helpful in keeping me on track through the times where I don’t want to do anything. (Of course, as a homemaker we never can get away with doing Nothing, we just don’t do things very well.)  Being a homemaker is hard because we do not have a boss who holds us accountable. There is no one checking up on us to make sure that we folded and ironed all of the clothes this week, and in many ways this makes it so much harder. However, our choices do affect other people; they affect our family and they affect us.  We are better women, wives, and mothers when we do our work and we do it well.