Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Playtime & Devotion
When I have children, I want to play with them. Nearly constantly. Whenever they want to play. As a missionary, I was supposed to leave my past life behind, and put all my personal cares aside. I want to do the same thing for my children that I was supposed to do for my investigators and the Savior. Make my life, all my focus, be on them. Working in love and unity with my companion. The fewer chores I can do the better. My only projects should be those that benefit my children and my husband. My rest and rejuvenation prepare me to have the energy I need to keep devoting myself to my family. And I will be blessed for it. By losing my life in the service of others, I will find my life. I'll find the kind of joy that true missionaries feel, but probably amplified even more! I get to keep my family. =)
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4 comments:
Amen. I LOVE this post. I share each of these same desires.
Found a quote by Julie B. Beck to go along with this:
Mothers who know are leaders. In equal partnership with their husbands, they lead a great and eternal organization. These mothers plan for the future of their organization. They plan for missions, temple marriages, and education. They plan for prayer, scripture study, and family home evening. Mothers who know build children into future leaders and are the primary examples of what leaders look like. They do not abandon their plan by succumbing to social pressure and worldly models of parenting. These wise mothers who know are selective about their own activities and involvement to conserve their limited strength in order to maximize their influence where it matters most.
And some more:
Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.
I LOVE that talk by Sister Beck! I love your desire. What a SWEET lady you are!!!
I hope you will realize the desire of your heart to play much with your children. I have not. I think I've forgotten how to play. Weighed down by the necessaries, I give up the lighthearted.
Still, in all of it, I continue to learn how to die to self! What a daily struggle - some days more of a struggle than others.
I think, really, that the chores and mundane things in each day are necessary as part of the WORK of mothering... teaching our littles to be workers... and also part of death to self. Cause who WANTS to wash dishes 5 times a day - or do two loads of laundry every day (and that's only with 3 kiddos)?!! Well, I suppose there might be a crazy out there who would love those things, but I'd rather be sitting with my girls reading, or watching them race in the yard... or any number of other equally wonderful and "fun" things that are my "play" any more. :)
Oh, I hope YOU will be able to play!!!! ^_^
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