in which I admit that this is hard

**I stumbled upon this entry in my journal this morning, and found that what I wrote still resonates with me.  It shows that I struggle.  Lots.  But it also reminds me that God is faithful.** 

November 4, 2010

I have a lot of apprehension about mothering two small children and keeping this house in order.  Somewhere along the way to adulthood I picked up this (untrue and unfair) belief that being a stay-at-home-mom was like taking the "easy way out" of life.  I suppose I thought that because I don't ever remember a time when my own mother didn't have a job.  Everything she did at home had to come from her exhausted evening self.  I reasoned that women who stay at home all day have all the time they need to "perfect" their dwellings.  In believing such things, I was truly naive.

I have discovered the difficulties of motivating myself to do things when I'm not getting paid for it, when my job security doesn't rest on whether or not I show up for work.  I don't have the choice.  My work continues 24/7.  I don't need to be awake, dressed, or even prepared for it.  It is thrust upon me at all times. I can't take sick days, and I definitely can't store up "holidays" for myself.  It's who I am rather than just what I do. 

This has been the biggest antithesis to my desire to excel in where God has placed me - this feeling of inescapable obligation.  I hate that I even use that word.  But, sad as it may seem, it is oftentimes true.  

This is precisely why I fear having two children: I am hopelessly flawed in mothering merely one child.  How can I expect to care for two?

I wonder if it is even right of me to compare "one baby vs. two".  Is it possible that a woman can't ever be prepared for motherhood, whether it is her first child or her fifth?  Does she become a mother anew with every single pregnancy, labour, and birth?  I hope to God that it is, because that would mean that I have no other option but to rest fully in His provision for our family, just as we did when Judah was born.

In a way, it's actually freeing to know that I will never have it all together, that I will never find it easy to live a SAHM life.  It will (and has already) endear other women who struggle with the same thing to my heart.  I won't be left trapped in my own fantasies that, one day, I will reach perfection.