“This house does not run Itself!”

I am a wife of a very caring, loving husband who is my friend and we are raising our girls to recognize that the household does not run itself! We all work together to keep it going.

You’ve heard me say before, this family does life together. That includes working together, (YES, we work at the same business), household chores, and being involved in every aspect of each other’s lives. When one of us is involved in a ministry at church or helping with an event at school, the whole family is involved. We support each other in everything we do. In the nursery director at our church, but our whole family is involved in the nursery. My girls volunteer as I teach and hubby is the hall as church security. When I need to go in to do a “deep clean” of all the nurseries, they come along and help clean. I’m the director, but they support me in this ministry.

I was talking with a friend this week and we were discussing “daily choices”.

When our girls were little, I was given the great opportunity to be home with them. While at home, I did the housework and cared for the girls. Early on, being a stay at home mom, I went through a period of being frustrated and feeling like I was doing everything on my own while my husband went to work. The Lord finally gave me a wake up call and helped me realize I was making a daily choice to be selfish! I only saw the work I was doing. I didn’t choose to see the work my husband was doing. He would come home from a long day at work and sit down for a quick dinner, a short visit with the girls and then run out to mow the yard before he lost daylight. He was caring for his family by going to work to earn money so we could live and then coming home to do household work to support me.

I began thanking my husband for the jobs he did around the house, that I used to not see. Simple things, like taking the trash to the garage, or changing the baby’s diaper, or playing with her so I could go shower. Even the simple thing of clearing his dishes from the table so it was one less thing I had to do. By making that daily choice, it created a new attitude for me and it even showed him that I was grateful for the little things that he did.

Now that our girls are older, we try to remember to thank each other for doing housework and helping out, in even the simplest things. It creates an attitude and household of gratitude. Does that mean that our house is only full of peace and love and thanksgiving? HA! I wish! Does it mean I don’t get frustrated or act selfishly? No way! It just means we are trying to choose to see and love others before ourselves.

We mommas/wives need to make a daily choice!

We can choose to be selfish and only see ourselves or we can look beyond ourselves and see others!