Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we have chosen the path that we’re walking down, especially when we hear of other’s success and we consider what we could be doing, or when life’s frustrations seem to usurp our daily activities. And how easy it is to compare what we have with what our friends have, even when circumstances are totally different. Why is it so easy to do, and without us even realizing we’re doing it? At Morning Watch this past week, I felt the Lord reminding me that our thoughts are not His thoughts; His thoughts are higher than ours. And when we compare our lives, and our children, and our husbands and wives to something else, we are seeing things distorted, and with an unGodly perspective. We have to learn to see things the way God does, without looking through the scope of envy and discontentment. He has a unique and perfect plan for each of us individually, and to let our hearts be lured by anything else is unsafe and unwise.
God, thank you for the family you’ve blessed me with. Thank you for the joy and the companionship they bring me. Help me not to get bogged down with all the little frustrations that come along with raising 3 small children. Help me to see my children as you see them, in the way that you created them uniquely and individually glorious. Help me to see them as wonderful even when they aren’t getting along, and when they aren’t obeying, and even when they just can’t seem to be potty-trained. Help me to not be distracted by what I see in other children. Keep me focused on the children you have given me, and the plan for their lives. And use every frustration that rises up in me to create a more patient and compassionate mommy. And God, help me to never take for granted the husband you have given me…my companion, my support, my best friend. Help me, even in the midst of those nerve-racking habbits, to see him as the one you have designed for me. Take every expectation that has been built up in my mind that is not from You and cast it down. Take every annoyance and use it to make me into a more patient and supportive wife. And Father, when I start to feel overwhelmed with everything, remind me that these “momentary light afflictions” are working something bigger in me, and I am on my way to a better me.