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Are you growing weary in doing good?

What does a homeschool mom do when she is growing weary in doing her daily tasks - teaching her children, cleaning her home, cooking meals and training her children?s hearts?

It may not happen when children are young, or even in the first year of homeschooling. The loss of willingness to do the right thing, even when you don’t feel like it, creeps up slowly. A thought here, a thought there...giving in to feelings of laziness...follow that with a good dose of intense training needed in your children’s lives and whammy – you have no strength, no will to continue doing good for your family.

Growing weary in doing good is a heart condition. It is not something that will change with a bigger home, a holiday or mini-break...it will only change if mom chooses to allow the change. God allows all circumstances in our lives to challenge, change and hone us so that we can become everything He wants us to be.

How do you know if you are weary in your heart?

You begin to question why you are giving up so much for your children and your family. One mom I know started to dream about going back to her work – a high pressured job where she knew she could achieve. Another mom started spending more and more time doing other things outside the home – in a sense – running away from her household responsibilities.

You prefer to not draw your children in and get to the heart of things when they are misbehaving but rather use spankings, yelling or disciplinarian measures to penalise their behaviour.

Your levels of busy-ness are such that you hardly spend time just enjoying your family’s company. You over commit in your church activities, and homeschool support groups, as a way to avoid being home.

Your relationship with your husband is more like an information swap, letting one another know what your schedule is like for the day/week. There is no desire to seek one another out for intimacy, dates or heart to heart discussions.

Your chores and your children’s chores around the home are piling up. You make excuses for the disarray in your home and are afraid that someone will drop by unexpectedly. Your husband is desperate for a clean pair of underpants (smile) and an ironed shirt.

You begin to blame PMS or ill health for the condition of your heart.

Your prayer life is hard, you feel you are talking to a God who does not hear and you are battling to hear His voice as you go about your day.

Remedy

There are a few key things to remember:

1. When we homeschool our children we are focused on building their characters. At the same time God is focused on building our character.

2. When God deals with us - to make us finely honed - it hurts, we can feel like we are loosing control, we can feel like we aren't coping - there are many ways that God shows us the condition of our hearts so that we can turn to Him for help.

3. He often uses the exact things we are trying to teach our children to teach us. That is, we notice how much WE need those same principles in our lives.

It is also worthy to note that it can become tempting to want to go to something where we know we can achieve when we are feeling defeated in another area. But God wants to develop character in moms and He is using the tool of you “doing good” to develop it.

So now that those few points are understood, how does mom climb out of the slump and begin changing the way she feels?

First step: Prayer, Renewing your mind

Before you act or speak to another, spend time with the Lord so that you can begin to hear from Him again. Learn to recognise His voice so that you can learn to obey it. Spend time reading the Bible, possibly starting in your concordance and looking at scriptures about how much the Lord loves you.

Second step: Trimming off

Once you are hearing the Lord’s voice again, ask Him to show you what needs to be trimmed. Ask Him to show you what is valuable activity in your days and what is not. Then obey Him. You may need to cut back on church activities, children’s extra murals or something similar, to make space for new growth the Lord wants to do in your life.

Third step: Mentors

Wisely choose one or two (at the most) godly Christian woman whom you know to obey the Lord. Seek their wisdom and counsel, but check the counsel against what the Lord says.

Fourth step: Time out

Make sure you find ways, each day, to do something for yourself. Does that mean that your children have a period of half and hour where they are not to disturb you so that you can read a chapter of a book? For others it may mean a bubble bath at the end of the day...and still others may want to spend time with the Lord.

It is guaranteed that if you start to spend time with the Lord and meditate on His will for your life that He will begin to restore all the reasons, and the will, so that you will no longer be growing weary in doing good.

Isaiah 40:31 "They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint."
Other articles you may be interested in:

Titus 2 - loving your husband and children
Caring for yourself

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