Floating Housewives

Well, my first blog post is going to be a description of my reason for starting this blog. I have been aware for many years that I had serious issues with organization and housework and just keeping my life straight in general! I have finally come to the point that I am ready to do battle with myself by putting off my laziness and putting on diligence. I have asked many fellow believers for prayer about this and I thought that keeping a blog would be a good way to record my journey.
Now, to the title of this post. I've thought for many years as I observed other women successfully keeping their homes and serving their husbands and children that they must have some special skill that I wasn't born with because it appears to be so easy for them and so unbelievably hard for me! I pictured them happily floating through their beautifully organized and perpetually clean homes humming as they went with their hair and make up done. They would dance through the kitchen as they prepared breakfast (a meal I have not yet mastered) and give their husband and each child a kiss as they sat down to eat. They always seemed ready for guests and happy to open their homes to them. This was the picture in my mind of how other women lived and my excuse for why I couldn't do the same. It just comes natural to them. I'll never be able to do what they do! Then one day for some reason I was thinking about athletes and figure skaters in particular. I thought about the way they seem to float across the ice and fly through the air. All of a sudden I remembered that they spend hours and hours every week training to strengthen their muscles, and falling painfully on the ice to finally acquire the ability to skate so beautifully. This brought me back to my picture of the floating housewife. I realized that my friends appeared to serve their families and keep their homes so gracefully because behind the scenes they were exerting huge amounts of energy and time and often falling painfully in their attempt. I remembered what I was called to do. I am called to "put off" the old man and "put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and holiness." Eph. 4:22-24 And I remembered that the goal of all of this was not to be a good housewife or mother, but to be made like Christ and bring glory to Him with my life. This realization woke me up and caused me to desire to fight the old lazy nature that still clings to me and replace it with diligent effort. So now I begin, one step at a time and this blog will be a record of it. I anticipate many failures and slidings back into my indulgent ways, but I also know that in Christ I am no longer a slave to sin and have the ability at every point to turn from my sin and choose to follow Him in obedience. And as I attempt this by His grace, I want to continually remember that none of my exertion or effort earns me one ounce of favor before God, but that I stand accepted and forgiven ONLY because of Christ's perfect life, death on behalf of my sin, and fully victorious resurrection, and that I can know that what He has begun in me He will complete! So come along with me as I wage this war and hopefully we can encourage each other as we walk together with Him and look forward to the time when we won't have to fight with our sin anymore!