Homestead Longings

The Value of Not doing anything.

I am finding that over the last few days, I am having a change of heart about my life and what exactly my role is in this life. Yes, in my mind, my very role and existence was in question. What is the value of me?

Summer always seems to get to me. There is really nothing to do in my mind. No meetings to rush off to, no homeschool family get-togethers, and we don't travel much during the summer. Our vacations tend to fall during the conventional school year. (One of the many reasons that we homeschool) The garden really doesn't do much of anything in this heat. It is one of those times when I start to wonder if I do enough. My calendar isn't packed and I don't have a bunch of projects to work on, and it makes me wonder. Am I a valuable and productive person if I am not doing and accomplishing things? Shouldn't I be as busy as the rest of the world? If I am not, am I not doing my share, pulling my own weight?

I think that it has to do with me being a stay-at-home mother. I don't have a conventional "job". I know that sometimes that makes some people look at me and automatically assume that I am either lazier or less competent than others. I know this to be true, because that is the way I used to think about moms that didn't work. Somewhere in my mind, I have convinced myself that because I do not leave my home everyday from 9 to 5 and draw an actual paycheck of my own, that I am not measuring up. So, to compensate I have tried to fill my schedule. To do lots of things that make me feel like I am still "working" in a sense. Go to this and that group, volunteer for this and that. Find things to do, do, do to confirm my value, value, value. Finally I had to ask myself, why? why? why????

It was like listening to a mother trying to contain a small child when they have gone off on a completely frustrating ramble to the point that they hear nothing else. STOP!! I heard God repeat it a few times. Just STOP!!

Stop? But where was the value in that? How could I be valuable if I was doing nothing? Yet....it did sound oh so appealing.

I have found over the past few days of being in a parked mode that even doing "nothing", I am doing something. These have been blissful days of pushing my kids on the swings, baking lots of messy things with them, reading the Bible more, taking walks, sitting down and watching a show that my kids or my husband is interested in just to sit next to them. Ironically, I have actually watched the joy my kids are experiencing and I feel like I have watched my "value" rise.

I have come to realize something. I actually do a lot. I am a mother, wife, teacher, and keeper of my home. Those may not be things that everyone holds of great value, but God does. And apparently so do my children and husband. I know God loves me and would not call me to a place that I would not be valuable to him at. So, though it may feel in my more modernly raised brain that I am doing "nothing", I have a different value. Like currency from another country, with an exchange rate unknown until you get to the gate and hand it in. We may find that what we are holding and think is not much of anything is the most valued of all in that foreign land.

Thank you!

03:37, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 .. Posted by yearning4yellowstone

Thank you so much for this post! It was very encouraging to me as I have been struggling with the same modern-day idea of worth. Thank you for reminding me that it's what God and my family think of my worth that is important, not the world's view.

Have a blessed day!
Jenna