Do you ever feel like you are constantly going? Do you ever get to the end of the day, exhausted and frazzled, but feel like you accomplished nothing in spite of the constant running? Sometimes the analogy of a hamster on a wheel seems all too fitting.
You wish you could find some peace in your days but it always seems just out of reach. It doesn’t even seem like you have time to be a peaceful person, which of course means that it is all the more essential. Luckily there are a few practical ways to cultivate peace in our days that, with the right attitude, can expand your satisfaction and joy as a mother.
Let your children slow you down.
It is easy to fall into the temptation of always looking for ways to get your kids busy, or keep them busy, so that they aren’t underfoot while you are getting things done.
Of course kids do need free time to play and just be kids, but by encouraging your kids to be with you as you go about daily tasks, you not only are teaching them life skills and a good work ethic, but you are spending valuable time with your kids. Of course you probably won’t be as efficient, but efficiency should not be our number one goal.
As mothers, we should think of ourselves as constant teachers, not just when it comes to the ABC’s, or learning how to count, but in teaching our children virtues (which they are hopefully mirroring from us) and essential life skills. If you find yourself getting stressed and snappy when your little ones are working with you, lighten the mood with a silly song or a dance around the kitchen. And remember, it is far more important that your children know that you love them and are happy in their presence that it is for you to be efficient.
Let go of your desire for control.
It is natural to want to be in control of our situations, but the desire to gain control of the situations in our homes will not lead to peace. As long as we strive for control, and whatever order and peace we think that will bring to us, the more out of control things will seem.
When we want to control situations and people, we are really just serving ourselves even if it doesn’t look like it. When the baby is crying you might need to stop in the middle of whatever job you are doing, and meet the more pressing needs of the baby. I don’t know about you, but it can be hard for me to stop whatever good work I’m doing so that I can do even better work that serves my family in that moment.
There are always a lot of good things we can do at any given moment, but there is only one best thing. Remind yourself over and over throughout the day, that you have a mission of joyful and loving service to your family. When you are thinking about serving other people rather than yourself, you will be able to let go of so many things that don’t matter at all, especially in the grand scheme of things.
Create peaceful rhythms.
No matter how busy our days are, it is important to have some deliberate times when we simply stop what we are doing, even if we haven’t completed everything we meant to accomplish, and take a rest.
This doesn’t mean we have to take an actual nap, or have time completely to ourselves, it just means that for a time, we stop focusing on being productive, and focus on our family. A logical time to do this is at the evening meal. It is easy to fall into the habit of viewing meals as just another thing on the to do list, but when we start to view meals as an intentional time during which both the bodies and the souls of our families can be nourished, the way we approach family dinner will change. When the point of a meal becomes more than just filling an empty stomach, it will become more important to us to serve healthier meals.
Taking a little bit of extra time to prepare truly nourishing meals should not seem superfluous. Nor should that little sprinkle of parsley or lighting a candle every once in a while, just because.
Of course I still have days when it is all I can do to throw in a frozen pizza, but I try not to make this the default. A couple of other ideas for peaceful and enjoyable rhythms include story time, taking a walk, and quiet individual play. Even if you have little children, with patience, you can slowly build in them the habit of peaceful rhythms at home.
Have a good attitude.
Be the Eye of the Hurricane, not the hurricane. There is nothing that affects your children’s behaviour more than your internal attitude. That is a hard truth to swallow sometimes. It is easy to want to blame anything and everything else for our children’s misbehaviour (junk food, screen time, irregular sleep patterns) and all of these things do, in fact, affect our children. But if you are truly at peace and centered in Christ, there is nothing you can not do.
Way too often, I let myself lose harmony with Christ, and get frazzled by things that absolutely don’t matter. When this happens, I handle situations in less than ideal ways. But when I am at peace, I am both calm and deliberate in giving my children necessary parenting. Children always seem to sense our internal attitudes even if others are deceived, and they will know if you are parenting out of calm and loving kindness even in difficult situations.
Conclusion to finding peace in motherhood.
The truth is, peace is not something reserved for calm and peaceful sunsets, or for when your day is going smoothly and the kids are cooperating. Peace can be maintained in the midst of a storm like the eye of a hurricane. Peace and Joy are not dependent upon things “working out”, or upon the circumstances at the moment. Rather, true peace depends upon surrendering all things to Christ, and upon the knowledge that our strength does not lie in our frail humanity, but in the almighty power of God.
And so our mantra should not merely be “I can do anything”, but rather “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me”. Only in true surrender to Christ will we know boundless joy and peace. In writing this post, I wish I could say that I had this whole surrender thing mastered, but the reality is that it is a surrender that must be made repeatedly, in big situations and small. More often than not, I fall drastically short. And when I do, I must once again ask God’s forgiveness and surrender all my human shortcomings to his Divine grace.
