It's amazing how quickly reality smacks you in the face after the euphoria fades. Monday, I woke up and I didn't feel like doing anything. The list of things I needed to do was extensive and, of course, add to it 4 kiddies...well, I wasn't too chipper, to say the least. After a late night I had to get up early to get Antony his breakfast. I was making him some Avena...cooked oats then liquefied with milk, agave, cinnamon and vanilla extract...yummmmm. Anyway, all the kids were in bed and I so wanted to just have a quiet morning and didn't want the loud noise to wake them. So picture me in my pj's with scrub-type bottoms on walking through the house with a liquefier in my hand and my pants decide to fall down while I am walking to my bathroom. What a lovely sight for sure. So breakfast was prepared in the bathroom and after all that rigmarole, the kids woke up as daddy was making his way out the door. But since I'd had it in my mind that I wanted quiet time, them being up and at it, so early, made me irritable. Well, more like, I chose to become so. They didn't MAKE me do anything, I chose to allow my irritation to rule my morning. Needless to say, I was off to a bad start and I didn't do my planning so the morning felt ill-spent.
It's so easy to get discouraged and just wallow in it. But in the end, it all comes down to the choice I make. And how funny when I am teaching my kids about making choices and I'm not doing it myself! Well, not funny. Jonathon was doing school the other day and although he was very productive last week, he seemed to be totally off this week. (Newsflash, Lisa, probably b/c of your lack of planning! The proof of the domino effect...) Anyway, he was crying and whining about being so hungry and that his hunger pain was just affecting him to the point that he couldn't move his pencil and it was inhibiting brain function (of course if he had been playing or watching TV he wouldn't have even noticed all that hunger pain) and I told him that if he's so hungry then he should go ahead and just choose to finish his work so that he could eat lunch with us. I told him that it was his choice to be miserable but that it would lead down the death path or to chose the path that brought good things, the life path. I told him it was his choice to be upset but nothing good would come out of it - he'd just waste time, waste energy and still be sitting there with the same amount of work to be done and still no food to show for it. It only makes logical sense to choose the thing that is good for us. I told him, Jonathon, you are in a race against yourself. You can choose to stop running but you'll lose the reward that comes at the end. Stop crying about your issue and run the race so that you can win the reward! He finally did make the right choice - after a little more of his wallowing in self-pity b/c of extreme hunger...and enjoyed lunch with the rest of us.
My choice to succumb to the lazy river only caused me to drift through my morning and ended up taking me nowhere. The discouragement bled into my relationships. I could've enjoyed my children more but instead I was short, curt, agitated, aggravated and whatever else that comes out of me when I'm choosing to be miserable. But how much time do I waste and energy do I spend b/c I don't make the choice to just run my race? It's only logical, good sense that says, hurry and make the right choice that will lead you down the Life Path! Thankfully, I too made the right choice before my whole day was eaten up...it took me a little while but I finally got it. ;) And we enjoyed the rest of our day and getting things accomplished.
I have the choice. My choice determines how long I allow discouragement or even just the "Monday Blues" to stop me from accomplishing all that God has for me in each day. Maybe going to my room, shutting the door and just being open about what I feel, "Lord, I am feeling yucky right now but I choose life. I choose to let go of the feelings and determine that my fruits of love, joy and peace will be developed right now. I need your strength to get me through today." I don't just leave it with how I feel but I finish it with my choice for life, for the good things God can accomplish in and through me in my day, and I acknowledge that I can accomplish it all by depending on Him.
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