Excuses, Excuses

We bought a foreclosure a few months ago and invested so much time and effort into fixing it up and cleaning it.

Then, of course, we had to pack and move all of our stuff.

After we had been sort of settled into the new house for about a week, we had a new baby.

When the baby was 4 weeks old, we went on a whirlwind trip back to our hometown in CT (a 16-hour trip with the whole family)…a week of preparation, travel, rushed visiting, and more travel…then another week of unpacking, laundry, van-cleaning, and re-settling at home.

Now, we’re fixing up another recently purchased foreclosure for my father-in-law to live in.

These are just a few of the various excuses I’ve been making over the past couple of months, as I’ve wondered off and on,

“What has happened to our routine?”
“Why is the tone in our home so negative?”
“Why are the children being so argumentative with one another?”

The fact is, life has been busy for us lately. On the plus side, we have managed to remain diligent in work that has needed to be done, and the children have been more than helpful in that regard. We’ve continued to have morning and evening family devotions. We have a day of rest (and fun) together every Saturday. These things are good.

However, aside from the first couple of weeks of this prolonged season (which went remarkably well), I would also say that we have not been proactive about consistently discipling our children in a positive manner. We haven’t been able to maintain our regular routines, I’ve gotten lazy about menu planning and meal preparation (can you say, convenience foods?) and our overall tones of voice have been somewhat abrupt as we go from one project and “to-do” to another. Granted, there were times when I would try to remedy any and all of these deficiencies, but overall we’ve ended up in a pretty low spot.

Generally speaking, the children have been a little more contentious than usual with one another–and we’ve not always taken the time to disciple them in those moments as we should. Attitudes all around haven’t always been the best. We’ve all grown a bit tired of the work and the lack of normalcy. So, though at different points we’ve desired improvement, we shouldn’t be surprised that it hasn’t evidenced itself. Excuses for poor behavior (even sin) have been all too easy to make.

As of late last week, I’ve decided to repent…stop making excuses…and start doing what I know I should be doing. It doesn’t matter that we have new (bad) habits to overcome; I need to return to the good things that we had been doing. Of course, there’s the little matter of self-condemnation that always rears its ugly head at times like this. I need to kick that to the curb, too, in order to move forward in faith.

The lesson? We all have moment-by-moment choices to make in life, no matter what season we’re in. Will we choose to honor God with our words, tones, attitudes, and decisions, or will we choose to indulge in complaining, focus on the negative, and neglect the good we know we should be doing? I am finding that making the right choices is so much easier when I parse life into discrete moments, rather than allowing myself to be overwhelmed by the monumental to-do list, our history, my emotions, or concerns about the future.

What kind of choices are you making right now? What effect do you think those choices will have on your family, on your ministry, and on your walk with the Lord as you go forward?

5 thoughts on “Excuses, Excuses

  1. Excellent thoughts Cindy. I think we all have times we need to step back and evaluate what is going on and if those bad attitudes are being neglected and overlooked and what in the situations we are experiencing that we can bring our faith into.

    Very good thoughts. I have been feeling the same way about some things. We have had a really rough month, and I have noticed some of the same things and trying to correct – repent- and allow things to heal so we can walk rightly.

    Thanks~
    Jacque

  2. Sorry, I hit the Enter on accident before I was finished! I thought I would clarify which "Jacque" I was!
    LOL

  3. Wow, we all seem to be in the middle of the same lesson right now. For the millionth time, huh? Oh, praise the Lord for His mercy and grace.

    Cindy, you put this so well. You have a real gift of communicating clearly and succinctly what the Lord is teaching you. Thank you for sharing it with the rest of us.

  4. I just "stumbled" across your website and blog tonight. You have no idea how timely and encouraging your blog is for me right now! God is good.(Honestly, our life circumstances are so similar, except I just had baby #6, and we live in upstate NY, and visit my family in central IN.) You described the attitudes in my household exactly, and my half-action/inaction in dealing with it all amidst the business. I will ponder and pray about what you have written. Thanks for the questions at the end. Very helpful!

  5. Cindy-thanks for your honesty and as Penney stated you do have a way of communicating! Inside my head you are but I could never get the words to come out as eloquently as you did.
    I too have been extremely busy this summer getting ready for our first year of homeschool and still haven't had time to finish your books I got in June from CHEO. On top of all of that this is my first year of canning and our garden has done GREAT! I have canned so many beans and pickles we are going to enjoy is so much this Winter! Now my tomatoes and green peppers are coming in so time to can those and make lots of pasta sauce, YUM! I'm also trying to figure out what to do with TONS of frozen wild blueberries. My first batch of jam turned out to be burnt blueberry candy – UGH! Then the second batch was going to be blueberry lime jam but it did not set into jam so now it will be given away as blueberry lime cheescake topping or ice cream topping.
    Well anyway I just wanted to thank you for speaking "outloud" what most of us are feeling. With your words I know we will take time to evaluate and plan to do better.

    *Thanks!*¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸
    ´ * ` ¸.•*¨) ¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨) ¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)¸.•´ **Micki**´•.¸
    http://www.ReflectionsofHeavenBoundMomof3.blogspot.com

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