Three Thoughts From My Hard Morning

 Thismorning was one of those mornings when you either scream or cry. I chose to cry!
Lydia was home for the day today. I like it that she can be home from school one day, but she has an annoying habit that really gets on my nerves. If she doesn't do it, I really enjoy her being home. But thismorning she was doing it! She was calling "mum" loudly over and over again. Answering doesn't help because she does it again a minute later. Ignoring it doesn't help. Nothing helps. (I'm not complaining, just being real) How do you punish a child for calling their mum?! So my nerves were bad and I had a slight headache! 

She also likes to help with everything I do, which can make doing some jobs hard. So since she needed a bath today, I thought I would put her in there while I did a few jobs. (We only have a baby bath, so there's no danger there.) I put a swim nappy on, so I thought there was nothing that could go wrong. She played happily and I checked on her a few times putting more warm water in. Then I came in and found she had been happily tipping nearly all her bathwater over the bathroom floor. It took four dry towels to clean it up. The bath mat was also sopping wet. This wouldn't have bothered me quite so much if I wasn't already catching up on washing from Johan and the kids being away. I had just emptied a suitcase and found more dirty washing! I had also brought a few second hand clothes the day before, so I was washing them, too. We airdry our clothes, and it was a wet morning.

So that was my situation... here are three thoughts that helped me. I hope they may help you in your situation.

1. Count what's not wrong instead of what is.

It was only water--nothing dirty. And it was clean water. There has been flooding in NZ lately, and I can't imagine having dirty water in my house. The fire was going--to dry the washing. I also have a washing machine to wring out the water. The floor got clean while I was drying it! A few of many things to be thankful for.

2. Count what you got done not what you didn't.

At the end of the morning, the things I had written on my list to do today were still there. Because I hadn't gotten these things done yet, it felt like I hadn't done anything. But then I counted all the things I had done and was surprised. 

I had done the breakfast dishes, tidied up, vacuumed the whole house, folded and put a large load of washing away, wrapped a present, unpacked a suitcase and put the rest of the suitcases back in their place, walked the children to school instead of driving, bathed Lydia (and mopped the floor!), read Lydia a story and played a memory game with her, planned two weeks worth of meals and cleaned the space where the children put their shoes.

3. Cast all your burdens on the Lord.

There were a few things on my mind that was adding to my hard morning. Burdens I didn't need to be carrying. So I prayed and told the Lord everything that was troubling me.

There are so many things that can burden us. Things we read on social media, things on the news, things that are happening around us...just to name a few. If we care about people, it's so easy to get burdened and depressed! We tend to carry these burdens around with us, instead of giving them all to the One who can actually help. He wants to carry those burdens for us. What a difference it makes when we give them all to Him!