ABOUT TO FALL ON MY SWORD

A verse from the song "Secret Of The Easy Yoke" by Pedro the Lion bounced around inside my head as my eyes opened this morning:

"but if all that's left is duty, I'm falling on my sword".

I woke up dreading all the daily monotonous duties that lie ahead of me today. Simple things that most would not consider taxing seemed overwhelming and daunting to me this morning. Doing these duties day after day with no end in sight and with very little sense of accomplishment because anything I do is instantly undone in a moment's time by my kids is enough to drive me mad. A friend of mine quoted Albert Einstein the other day and it rang so true to me. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I feel like that is what my days look like most times lately. It's not only doing the work over and over again expecting different results, but it also trying to teach the kids over and over again life lessons like respect, listening well and being kind to each other. I know teaching children is a slow process and they don't get "it" overnight, but it seems like it is SO SLOW at times that I don't see results at all. I know the results DO happen in retrospect, looking back over the years, but in the mist of the day to day grind it just feels like things will never change.

Well, after I got out of bed to begin the tasks that did not get finished yesterday like cleaning up the kitchen and the rest of the house for that matter intermingled with bathing kids, dressing kids, feeding kids, conflict resolution, wiping up pee and dressing kids again, I felt like God was urging to me to stop doing the duties for a moment and call out to him to find hope, comfort and encouragement. But I quickly ignored the prompting and pressed on in the tasks at hand. "Great", I thought "another duty to add to the list - pray". "Thanks God, thanks for reminding me of just one more thing I should do that I have been failing miserably at! "

As the morning rolled on, I passed by the kitchen table and my eyes landed on a random open book that needed to be picked up and put away. But, before I could pick it up, these words jumped off the page at me.

"Suppose prayer is not a duty, but the opportunity to experience healing and transforming love?"