I’ll be totally honest. I am such a failure….and then I remember my spiritual director’s advice and how I kept on failing. This weekend he said to me “Don’t get insulted okay? But you keep doing this and it has to stop.” I was in tears! I think he wanted to charitably say, “You fool! I told you what you needed to do now LISTEN!” I mean, I should know better, I know the order of things should be 1. God 2. Marriage 3. everything else; but I get so distracted so easily. The thing is that I want to go the easy route, it’s much easier to distract myself with social media or anything else.
Want to know what the worse part is? I felt like a hypocrite because I was praying and thanking God for my family but then I chose to ignore that which is the first thing I should be doing: focusing on my vocation as mother and teacher. From the outside, if you showed up at my house, you’d never know it. Lessons were complete, the house is clean, and food yummy…but I was stressing and I was also stressing my children. The worst part is that I kept getting mad at the children for not doing their part and then I realized it was ME who wasn’t doing my part. I get so distracted….and then things don’t run as smoothly as they should and I start calling myself a failure. This all because I was giving other things importance so things around here were suffering.
When I get to this point, I want to quit homeschooling, being the housewife, and just go the easy route and go back to work and put the kids in school. A life, I have already led and hated. So I begged God to give me THIS life, and so He did…and I’m so ungrateful because I abuse it. So what was my breaking point? I was having a conversation with a seminarian friend of mine and asked him how things were going. He said he struggled with keeping with the strict schedule and routine at the seminary. He grew up in a homeschooled setting but apparently his mother was “frequently and easily distracted”. He might as well have slapped me on the face! So, as I was kneeling in Adoration I asked myself, why? Why do I go down this path, time and time again….when what I want and need to do to get my family there is RIGHT IN MY FACE?
After all, I want my children to succeed in life and be able to keep a schedule but more importantly, if the Lord calls them to the religious life or priesthood, I don’t want them to struggle with this…because it will be due to my lack of fortitude. “When things go wrong in the day, step back, grab your Bible, say a prayer, and relax. Then try again,” Father said to me in the Confessional this past Sunday. “Don’t let yourself go to THAT place.” HOW on Earth did he know that I go there? {I know it’s really the Holy Ghost speaking through him.} But it’s like a snowball coming down a hill, feeling sorry for myself, feeling like a failure…and all sorts of things. I have to stop, it’s not the kids, or my husband, it’s me…I let this happen. So when my husband got home one evening, I sat with him and we spoke about what we wanted to be true for our family, what kind of example we wanted to be as a family to others, and how to use those principles to make good decisions about our priorities and commitments.
When I told my dear friend that I was going to write about this on Catholic Sistas she immediately said, “Oh, you know it’ll come across as super holy and pious.”
I laughed.
It might sound this way to you…but how could it? I failed to fulfill my vocation as mother and teacher to my children. I’m horrible at two things that makes this get worse: 1. getting to bed at a decent time and 2. sticking to a schedule. Then I thought about my own childhood and my beautiful, wonderful, amazing, pious and loving mother had these same issues. So what do I know? I don’t. But this is the moment to stop, listen, read, educate, learn, and practice this…not just for me, because it’s my duty as their mother but for them, and their future.
I’ve tried all the cool and latest methods and modes of keeping a schedule. I did learn that a super strict schedule is my demise; I fail faster. But just like anything else in life, if I set a small goal and meet it, then I can set another and meet it…slow and steady wins the race. Since I am not an organized person by nature, never was as a child, nor a young adult, and now as an adult, it has been one of my constant struggles. When I first read books like A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot, I thought, “There is no way I can micro-manage my life like that – NEVER happening, nope…I will be miserable!” Honestly, I believed that becoming a micro-manager in my home, homeschool, and daily life would equal a tormented mommy and wife. I mean if every aspect of my life was organized and timed and schedule, when would I find the time to “play”, “relax” and really “enjoy life”. So I went with the flow like I always did, organized my homeschool, some, the house, some, my prayer life, some. But my so-called “freedom mentality” was just the opposite! Yeah, I admit it, I was dead wrong! So it’s time to change my old habits…go hide in my little cocoon (my house), and grow into a different kind of person, a different mom and wife. The one that God called me to be not the one that I am now.
A wise Catholic friend of mine, Bernadette Walker once said something that stuck with me, “If the only “monastery” we create is our children, let’s personally teach them to love Christ and His Church. If we do, the faith in our families will be a living water, another Holy well to last throughout generations.” I created an image to print and post around my house as a constant reminder that THIS is what my job is. Creating a “monastery” for my children by being the Christian I tell them I want them to be.
Today, I kept all distractions at bay, focused on the kids, the housework, and guess what? I had two whole breaks, one in the afternoon and another in the evening to enjoy the kids, relax and even get a little Facebook in. So yeah, nothing pious and holy and perfect here….I am definitely a work in progress, we all are, right? Which is why we are called PRACTICING Catholics and not the “we got this all figured out” Catholics. My goal right now is to give back to God what He has given me. Baby steps, little by little, a daily commitment that I am making right now. Please pray for me as tomorrow is a new day and today was a fruitful day. You know that Satan and his minions will be on the prowl since I now have told them to, “Shut up and leave me alone!”
I know the Lord will bless my life tremendously when I do what I’m supposed to do, in an organized manner on the home front. After all, the woman is the heart of the home. My children are looking up to me, and if I want them to be obedient I need to give them a good example. I need to imitate Our Blessed Mother more. By doing this I can bring more peace and love into our homes; and surrender to motherhood, the fruits of my marriage vocation.
