Losing Focus

Do you ever have times when your life just loses focus? When you get so caught up in the day to day tasks, running from one thing that needs doing to the next, that you lose sense of what's important? Yesterday was like that for me.

I've been working hard on managing my home and my family. I've been staying on top of the dishes after every meal and working hard to make sure that our homeschooling is on track, plus trying to be a fun mom and make time for relationship maintenance with Daniel, and yesterday it all just sort of took over.

Because it was the 4th of July meals were rushed and dishes were neglected. No one was cleaning up after themselves, the laundry seemed to explode overnight, and I was repeatedly outvoted on what we were going to do. I kept finding myself inside cleaning up messes and doing chores that the girls had neglected to do while they were outside having fun with their dad. Then last night the neighbors continued doing fireworks until 3 a.m. and the baby woke up at midnight, 2 a.m, 4 a.m., and 6 a.m. so I was exhausted when Daniel came home from work at 7:30 a.m. and said that he was too tired to let me catch an hour nap. It was true. He'd been up for about 26 hours already.

So I found myself this morning sitting in a bathtub, facing a big day of cleaning and laundry and homeschooling, with Kevin hanging over the side of the tub splashing water at me, while I sat there and wept like a baby. I was just worn out. I was thinking how will I handle all the work of caring for more children when one bad day can reduce me to tears!? I needed to start laundry and get breakfast going because I only had about an hour until it would be time to start homeschooling. Instead I grabbed my bible and the baby and we sat outside in the sunshine and read out loud from Psalms. King David really knew how to cry out to God and ask for comfort and help in times of trouble. God heard me. Here are the verses I opened to:

Psalm 68: 4-6a "Sing to God, sing praise to his name, extol him who rides on the clouds - his name is the Lord - and rejoice before him.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, "

Psalm 68: 19 "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."

God was speaking directly to my needs and fears. "He sets the lonely in families" just as He will set our new children in our family. He "daily bears our burdens" so that I can relax and not try to do it all in my own strength. The rest of today has gone really well. The girls have been helpful. Kevin took a 2 hour morning nap so that we could get the majority of our homeschooling done. And Daniel just woke a few minutes ago ready to enjoy the day with us. I even managed to get the house clean and some laundry done. Praise God! He is good!