The occupation for which all others exist

Holy week is over, and I feel like I didn't reverently remember it, nor appropriately celebrate its conclusion.  There was too much going on.  I was simply trying to keep my head above water, and for the most part, it was a total fail.  The most I can say I actually accomplished was to keep my family fed and that was largely thanks to meals had at my mother's house and my mother-in-law's house.  Why is being a mother/homemaker so difficult?

Pitiful as my first Easter as a mom was, I did, at least, get a few pictures of Easter adorableness...

Saturday we celebrated with Chase's family - thanks for the Easter basket Aunt Cara!

Easter Sunday Lily wore her new Easter dress - thanks Grandma Becky for the dress!

I'm trying to find ways to simplify my life, while at the same time committing to do more and more things.  It's a coming together of the urgent and the important.  There are urgent things in life that absolutely must be attended to.  Things like taxes, dishes, laundry, work, going to the bathroom, making meals, putting the baby to bed, and sleeping all absolutely must be done.  But when I think of important things - things that will matter 10 days from now or even eternally, going to the bathroom isn't among them.

The important things are things like taking pictures of my 6 month old, recording memories to be cherished for the years to come, spending time with my husband, building friendships, spending time feeding my soul.  These are things so important that they simply can't be overlooked.  But they are, every day.  And it kills me.

I HATE not being able to focus on the important because the stinking urgent is screaming in my ear, staring me in the face, and demanding that I do nothing until I take a break to empty my darn bladder.  ...Ok, so I'm being a little over-dramatic, and perhaps a bit too personal, but seriously!  Imagine all the time I would have throughout my life to focus on the important if dishes never had to be done, and if we never got our clothes dirty.  But then, I suppose it's simply a waste of time to even think such things, because dirty clothes and dirty dishes are part of life.  They are often a part of urgent life, and if you let them go too long, they become a part of urgent-and-important life.

As if the battle between the urgent and the important weren't enough for me to ponder, I've also been thinking lately about the constant comparison that we mothers and homemakers (whether we work out of the home or not) make among ourselves.  We compare our bodies, our children's bodies, our children's abilities, our cooking, our homes, our husbands, our time, our vacations, our weekends, our weeks, our priorities, every inch and iota of our lives all the time.  Most of it, in my life at least, is done in friendship, to learn from one another.  But MAN.  It can get wearing on a person, can't it?

CS Lewis wrote a letter to Mrs. Johnson in March of 1955.  In it he sympathizes with what must have been her complaints about being a house wife:

I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife's work being like that of Sisyphus... [a king in Greek mythology who was punished to forever roll a huge boulder up a hill, but before he reached the top, he would watch it roll back down the hill, and he would have to start pushing it up again - he was punished to do this for all of eternity].  But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world.  What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes?  As Dr. Johnson said, 'To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour.'  ...We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it.  So your job is the one for which all others exist."

I would have liked to have met Lewis.  (And who wouldn't, really?)  He got it.  He got the never ending struggle that is running a household.  What was done yesterday must be redone today.  Just when one thinks one has gotten ahead, one looks back to see the boulder sitting, yet again, at the bottom of the hill.  Wearily we trudge back down to begin pushing it up again.  He got the monotony.  But more critically, he got the importance of running a household.

Amidst the monotony, there exists the important.  The important is, in fact, so critical, that he calls it "the most important work in the world."  The important (I must be reminded) includes that of baking bread, changing diapers, washing dishes, sweeping floors, scrubbing toilets.  It is, as Lewis explains, the job "for which all others exist."  What a reassuring thought!

Whether I work out of the home or stay at home all the time with my family, my role as a wife, a mother, a homemaker is the most critical job I have, and the job which will always be supported by all my family's other jobs.

I wish it was the kind of job for which a job description could be written, but it's simply not.  There is no one "right way" to make a home.  There is no one "right way" to parent.  There is no one "right way" to care for my husband.  There are better and worse ways to do such things, but even those qualifications vary from family to family and from phase to phase in the life of the family.

I feel like I am constantly evolving as a wife, as a mother, as a home maker.  May God grant me the grace to evolve into what my family needs from me, and may He grant me the wisdom in those critical moments to set aside the urgent and focus on the important, be that changing a diaper, washing a dish, listening to a friend, communing with my spouse, or feeding my soul.