I once saw a play (B.C., that is, before children, when we actually had season tickets to do cultural things like that) But…I once saw a play where there was one female actress among a mostly male cast. She held her own amongst the testosterone ladened banter and she contributed numerous insightful lines. However, I couldn’t help but notice that she held her post on center stage anchored in the kitchen. She spent most the play washing dishes or making meals as the men would come and go in and out of the house going about their business doing more interesting things up stage. There she stood, faithfully washing or drying or putting away the dishes. They had actual running water up on stage, too, to accentuate her continual, repetitive role of rinsing and repeating. I bet she had actual dish pan hands, too. No make up required for that one.
At the conclusion of the play, I remember thinking to myself, “What a boring role that actress had to play. How the other actors got to do more exciting acting and there she was, staged in the kitchen the whole time. Couldn’t they have given her some more exciting things to do?” (Again, I saw this play BEFORE I had children, before I was a stay-at-home mom. Back when I actually had a career and left the house each day to commute to work.)
But these days, I think of that lone female actress often while I’m feeling chained to my kitchen sink. I think of her when I get one load of dishes cleaned up, put away, kitchen counters cleaned off. And then my all male cast returns from playing outdoors or from a day at school and it’s time to feed them again and the cycle starts all over again. I try to contribute an insightful line every now and again, but I can relate to more than just that actress’s dishpan hands.
I’ve learned, through the monotony of motherhood, that I don’t do well with routines. In fact, they beat me down. I know they’re a requirement of the job and a necessity to keep the ship a float, but I struggle to do and re-do the same things over and over again only to have them quickly un-done. A meal, once prepared, quickly becomes the next pile of dirty dishes. The laundry, once cleaned, dried, folded and put away, quickly becomes the next pile of dirty clothes. So many other projects that I’d like to tend to are left undone simply that I run out of time – or energy by the end of the day.
Oh, what wisdom was breathed into the Bible when in Ephesians 5: 15-16 it says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” We live in a fallen world and we are constantly attempting to make order out of chaos. I try to remind myself of this as I’m seemingly always trying to bring order into the chaos of our home. But I’m also learning that if I flitter away my day standing at the kitchen sink or continually sweeping the ever growing mountain of crumbs that accumulate daily upon my kitchen floor or cleaning the messes off the kitchen countertops – again. That before I know it, that’s all I will have accomplished or contributed to the day. The days are evil. I must plan ahead. I must step away. I must leave a mess so that I can tend to more important tasks like reading a story to my son who wants to cuddle or playing catch on a nice spring day with a little boy who actually still wants to play with his mama. These moments are fleeting. If I’m continually distracted and busy with seemingly unimportant housekeeping tasks, I’m going to miss the significant motherhood moments hidden in each day – what’s truly important that’s growing up and changing right in front of my eyes.
Lord, this is my prayer: please help me not to miss out on these moments. Help me to be fully present. Help me to see the motherhood moments more than I see the messes. Help me to put the tasks of maintaining a house aside for the tasks of creating a home. Help me contribute to their days, pour truth into their hearts not just create a clean home or pour a warm meal for them. Lord, please give me awareness, patience and energy level that can only come from you. And Lord, please help me to walk through my days wisely.