Back to my ordinary life

Wow, after a 4 month hiatus, I have finally emerged from the land of paper-writing and speed-reading (which is really not at all speedy) and returned to my ordinary life. Don’t get me wrong, I love seminary and learn so much in my classes, but I do believe I love boring days of ordinary house-wifedom/stay-at-home-momness better. There is just something strangely gratifying about cleaning out closets, organizing everything under-the-sun, getting rid of things you can’t begin to remember why you kept in the first place, cleaning the shower!!!, and yes, even making the bed (a task which is normally reserved for those rare occasions when we have company).

 

Let me be clear, I live under no disillusions that I am a good house-wife or stay-at-home-mom (to which I am sure Wes can attest), but I have learned to truly love the ordinary stuff. I used to feel discouraged by the success of other women, especially those who seem to accomplish so much with houses full of children. Somehow I was certain that I was simply a failure… at everything... at motherhood, wifedom, business endeavors, blogging, friendship, etc. I didn’t feel I excelled at anything, and by trying to do so much, I failed, at least to some degree, at everything. To a certain extent, that is still true, but I have finally learned a few things…

 

• I can’t do everything… I cannot be Pioneer Woman… and though I love/envy her talent, I generally leave her blog feeling guilty and inadequate for all I fail to get done… I cannot do it all, or even half…
• I can’t be a business woman… while I admire those women who manage to raise children, start/run a small business, all the while appearing successful and happy… I am not one of those women. I love my “little-clothing-business-that-could” but it has become the “tiny-clothing-business-that-is-more-like-a-semi-annual-hobby”… 
• I can’t take three classes in one semester… I am remedial… It will take me many years to finish my masters... but I will chip away at it SLOWLY and hope that by the time my children graduate, I will too…

 

Perhaps this seems to be quite a negative view of myself, but I think I just work backwards… I had to realize what I couldn’t do first and then figure out what I can do, should do, love doing, and am called to do… I have finally learned a few things…

 

•  It’s ok to just do a few things… a very few things, and maybe if I just focus on a few, I can do those things quasi-well instead of just barely good-enough.
• It’s ok to take a long time to finish school… making the decision to start was the hard part… I took that step, and I will keep stepping, slowly, sometimes backwards but mostly forwards, and eventually, I will finish… I hope! Perhaps I will even retain more by going slowly, instead of just rushing through and checking things off the degree-requirement-list.
• My first and most important job is to be a mother and a wife… and when I give myself time to actually BE that… I L-O-V-E that job, more than any other. In truth, it is more than a job… it is my calling… right now, I am called to nurture my family… this is the task God has given me, and I am not just labeling it as a “calling” to make myself feel better… I somehow understand more clearly now just how important, huge, and difficult the task is of raising children… not just meeting their physical needs, but teaching and showing them how to be good, loving, Christian people. Even if I fail at everything else, I pray I don’t fail at this.
• I am a child of God… I cannot fail at that, no matter how hard I try… or more aptly how little I try to be a good child… I am still His, even when I fail… and fail… and fail… even when my priorities are all wrong… even when I feel like a failure at everything else, this I still am and will always be… I hope to be a better child… in fact, I plan on that… but I am sure I will still fail, at least occasionally…. And that’s OK.

 

Perhaps a better title for this post and my life would be “And that’s OK”… because it is… Ordinary is OK… actually its better than OK… it’s fantastic. And I am called to live my ordinary life the best way I can. You see, I realize now that God calls some people to extraordinary lives… some are meant to be “successful” and amazing in the world’s eyes… and some are meant to be great at being ordinary… going largely unnoticed by the world, but not without affecting their own small piece of it… I am one of the latter… and that’s OK.