Nothing says you are home from homeschool convention like a pile of laundry! Now i have been home since Sunday, but now on Thursday I am finally taking notice to tackle the inevitable. Even after such an awesome weekend being refreshed and energized, I can easily come home and look at a pile like this and get into a pretty bad attitude.
I got the blessing of sitting in Diana Waring's first Session on Things I Wish I'd Known. What a powerful way to start of the weekend at the convention off!
The greatest influence she spoke about was to fixate on what I am thankful for and how my complaining could very well become a very well controlling thing, just because I give it power from my lips and then my mind and ultimately my heart.
It hit home with me. I have a huge stumbling block, I complain voice my concerns about it all the time. My house. My husband says I am not being content. I respond that I am stating facts. Well a thirty minute session with Diana and I for once, seen what my husband had been hearing from my mouth. I am not content and I shamelessly and entitled-ly voice my resentment. Uh-oh.
Well the truth is, unknowingly I allowed my resentment to become the very thing I fixated on. I allowed it to control my attitude and even control what I would do each day. My house became my excuse for everything.
Diana explained instead to fix on the things to be thankful for and know when we do the Lord will open us to even more.
So today when I began to compile the dirty laundry (BY THE WAY THIS IS NOT ALL OF IT), I counted my blessings that I am thankful for. Here they are:
- I have laundry!
- I have a wonderful washing machine that works as it should!
- I have laundry detergent!
- I have water and electricity to run it!
- The machines are in my home, so I do not have to go anywhere!
- I have a lot of little hands to help me make dirty laundry and collect it!
- My laundry is on the back porch, I get to hear God's wonderful birds sing a song of joy!
- My laundry is on the porch, I get a muffled sound of the chaos!
Lord, thank you for all these blessing and your unchanging promise to show them to me with a pile of laundry. A pile of laundry that is not a one time gig, but a daily reminder of how you provide for me.
Tell me. What is your hang up and how can you be thankful? after this weekend, I realized I am not alone in this struggle. Sometimes during the worst of it, it is hard to know how to find thankfulness in the chaos.
~trish
