Being a mom and a wife have been the greatest blessings I could ever ask for. It is exactly what I hoped it would be as a child, and it is what I prayed for as a teen. But, along with these great blessings comes MAJOR duties, MAJOR responsibilities, a JAM-PACKED schedule, and a TO-DO-LIST that never ends.
I feel like I went into motherhood blindly. Of course I was ready for children but I had preconceived ideas of how things would be. For instance, I assumed my husband would be home every evening by 5 p.m. and that the kids would have their rooms picked up and be sitting quietly on the couch reading a book or watching tv while I finished cooking dinner. I thought we would then eat as a family, play some board games, do a family devotion and the girls would be in bed by 8 p.m. My husband and I would then sit and talk about our day and head off to bed around 9 p.m. for a full 8 hours sleep. HAHAHA yeah right!!!
Life gets CHAOTIC at the Ratliff house. If you watched the movie “Mom’s Night Out", I CAN RELATE! My husband, John works a lot of hours and is rarely home by 5 p.m. My oldest daughter, Morgan Grace has a wonderful imagination which sometimes leads us to paper forts all over the house or random drawings taped all over the walls. Sometimes we have full blown birthday parties for her imaginary friend "Neat-O" (oh yes, we bake cakes and invite Momaw over with presents…it's for REAL).
You may possibly find my youngest, Isabella eating out of Scruffy's dog food or bathing in his water bowl.
Oh and speaking of Scruffy, let's not forget about him peeing (in anger) from one end of the living room to the other!
Also, we are very involved in our church; Morgan Grace plays soccer; and Isabella has physical therapy. I try to exercise daily and let's not forget trying to maintain a social life.
At times, I have gotten so stressed out from everyday life that I have literally cried because I just felt I couldn’t do it all; that I couldn’t be all I needed to be.
This hectic schedule left, unfortunately, very little time for prayer and reading my Bible. I would even write it on my to do list in hopes of it getting it marked off.
Now, like I said earlier, we are very involved with church and we always have been. I was raised to be there every time the door is open and I often volunteer for everything the church has going on. There is also a mom's group that I meet with once a month and a homeschool co-op that I attend once a week.
In the midst of all of this “serving Jesus”, I began to feel like I had lost Him. I had become so wrapped up in obligations and taking care of my family that I slacked in the ONE thing that mattered most. I hate to even admit it but hopefully someone can relate…. there were days that the only time I prayed was with my girls at bedtime or before dinner, and the only Bible reading I did was during Morgan Grace’s bible class. How sad is that! To serve Him but miss Him….Oh how I longed to be a Mary and just sit at His feet. As a teen that’s what I did. I read my bible and prayed for hours. I was SO in love with Jesus. When I became a wife and a mom, life became hectic. My anxiety increased so much that it was affecting my health.
Recently, one morning I woke up early in a complete panic. I couldn’t catch my breath, and I was scared to death. I had started a little “war room” in my closet but as you may have guessed I wasn’t very faithful to it. The morning I woke up in a panic, this is the first place I headed, down on my knees in complete surrender to the only one who could help. In that moment, I realized that I could not be the wife, mommy, sister, daughter, aunt, daughter- in-law, Sunday School teacher, and homeschool mommy, that I needed to be in my own strength. In my own strength, nothing I do will last.
God gave me a peace that morning that I hadn't had in awhile. FROG (fully relying on God) is a DAILY decision. Reading your Bible and praying SHOULD be a part of your daily routine!! There’s no way I would go without feeding my physical body so why do I feel that it is ok to go days or weeks without feeding my spiritual man? It's as simple as the song we use to sing in Sunday School …. “Read your Bible, pray everyday and you'll grow-grow-grow; BUT, …… Don’t read your Bible, forget to pray and you’ll shrink-shrink-shrink.”
I'm changing things up!!! It wasn’t that I was living a bad sinful life, not at all, but I allowed the busyness of life, the things I thought were right to do, take over and control my life. I truly believe the most important relationship I will ever have is the one with my Savior. The one who bled and died on an old rugged cross to save my soul! The one who is ALWAYS with me even when I don’t feel Him. The one who loves me even when I don’t choose to spend time with Him. This relationship is what matters.
Don't do what I did, don't get caught up in the busyness of life that you forget Jesus. He's far too precious to be placed on the bottom of our to-do list or on the back burner.
