Working hard...

During the year I always get these noble, grandiose ideas about what it would be like to be a stay home mom. If I were a stay home mom, for example, I would always have fresh fruit and vegetables in the house (better yet, the kids and I would have gone to the local market and picked them out ourselves.) We would never run out of milk or healthy snacks, my husband would have little handwritten notes everyday, etc etc... Classic 'the grass in greener on the other side' stuff. And about the title of today's post, I hear that a lot: that I work hard. Or too hard. But honestly, although I am working on margins in different areas of my life, I can't imagine a life of not working hard. I have been so blessed with a healthy and able body. I have legs that walk and run and jump. I have lungs that function well. I have a wonderful job; I love my job and am so blessed by how I can grow and learn through what I do. I have a beautiful apartment that I want to keep clean. Lots of moms don't have what I have. Lots of people don't have what I have. Young lives are ended everyday, lives younger than mine. My own mother was in a wheelchair by the time she was my age. Luckily I got to have my mom until I was 21; some people don't get that long with their mothers. What a gift and blessing each day is. Stressful at times? yes. Exhausting? You bet. But I really feel compelled to fill each day. I just feel it as a being a responsible steward of the life God has given me. Like the parable of the talents; using and investing what you have. Or the parable of Jesus feeding the 5000. How did he feed 5000? Because a few gave all they had.