Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15
I don’t always find my particular personality fits very well with being a wife and mother in this current ‘small child’ phase of my life. I am quite an extreme extrovert – or at least that’s what it feels like when I’m spending most of my days with small people and most (at the moment) of my evenings with a husband at business meetings or working on the computer. I am a strongly relational person, with ‘quality time’ being the way I give and receive love. Quality time in the day is difficult to attain when every adult conversation is interspersed with child directed encouragement, instruction or discipline. In the evening I would love to revert to life before children – popping round to friends’ houses at a moments notice, nipping out for a quick drink or deciding that the cinema would be the best choice for that day. As I write this I am not in my usual Saturday morning coffee shop, but sitting in again as hubby ‘networks’ and the children sleep. Most friends also have children and can’t do the spontaneous thing, so I am left to my own devices. Depending on my choice I can feel miserable or contented, ill at ease or peaceful.
If I focus on all the reasons why I should envy others for their lives in their life stages, I miss out on all sorts of things – the fact that I have a husband; the fact that I have kids; the fact that all too soon they will be grown and gone. I may find it cloying when they run to me and only me when they are upset, but I will miss it so much more when they choose not to. I have had and still have strong friendships – they take second place to my husband and family now as they should, but they are still there. I have so much. My choice – for tonight at least – is to be thankful.
