Acceptance, Laundry, & Robots

Recently life has become very compartmentalized. I don't know how well I'm adjusting or keeping up.

Between the increased rigors of home-schooling, home-keeping, everyday responsibilities and new part-time work, I'm easily overwhelmed by the seemingly endless tasks that require me for completion. Sometimes I feel as if the world would stop spinning on it's axis if I didn't tell it to keep on twirling...or at least feed it a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

Change requires sacrifice. Most of us will admit that sacrifice is hard, even when it's just the little things. Sacrifice shows me the idols I'd rather not acknowledge. They're different for all of us but change shows me that I cling too hard to my own time, my own agenda-wish-list.

Oh I am selfish with my time. Giving up more of the precious little I had for myself is downright painful. I remind myself that the mothers who came before me probably devoted fewer thoughts to issues like "me time" than we moderns do. As I've said before, sometimes I envy those long-ago mothers. Like it or not, we are products of our place in history.

And while opportunity cost is a reality for all of us, there are seasons in our lives when we feel that more acutely. This blog post, for example, means that I will stay up even later folding laundry or that it will just not get folded at all until another day. Every bit of the unnecessary {like writing} that I choose for myself means that I have to be okay with the undone. It means I can't complain about it, I can't secretly fret and fume...I can simply accept the what is.

Acceptance, much like her sister, "Sacrifice," is also hard. My Father keeps reminding me, gently but clearly, that this is the stuff of life, the stuff of being a responsible grown-up. Change, sacrifice, acceptance...it's what we adults often have to do.

I like provision to come in the form of a money tree in my backyard or a plane ticket to Paris in my mailbox. And sometimes gifts do come in ways that are magical and undoubtedly supernatural {though I have yet to experience the tree.} And when they do, my lips are eager to offer praise.

But when opportunity comes in less-than-glittery ways, I too often choose to see what I'm giving up rather than what I'm being given, my pessimistic tendencies an all-to-familiar obstacle to joy.

It's all in how I see it. Sometimes I'd rather be a robot, a series of buttons and switches that someone could just program. Choice can be overwhelming.

Thankfully we're not on our own...and we're not robots either. I can choose the lens through which I view the season but in any given moment, I lose it. And that's when I cry out to the One who made me, not as a robot but as someone who can ask for new eyes {a little reprogramming}, anytime, anywhere, no matter the season.

So I'm choosing {with some divine encouragement} to accept the change and the inevitable sacrifice that comes with it. And there's some cool stuff happening...excitement, surprising fulfillment, even some joy.

And yes, some unfolded laundry...

Because some things never change.

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