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Pause Life for a Moment- Good Day, Regular People

Today’s Pause Life for a moment blogger is the Empress. She reigns over Good Day, Regular People with a kind heart, a generous spirit, and a sense of fun. I love to stop by to read her posts. Her blog shares her insights as well as her son Baby E’s. Life can get you down at times. The Empress’ posts can brighten your day and  can make you laugh, think or cry.

First, JDaniel’s mom, I want to thank you for the special gift of being invited to guest for “Pause Life For a Moment.”

This series you’ve created, just in writing on the topic, allows any guest poster and reader of these words, to pause in their day, and refocus on what is going to matter to us, our families, and our children.

I thank you, for the space you’ve given me here, to “re-focus.”

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Women are busier now then they have ever been.

The opportunities, along with the lure of social media, exercise clubs, personal hobbies, working outside of the home or inside the home, is deliciously tempting, and rewarding.

We are no longer lonely women at home, we have friends at the push of a key. Contact with others can be a short 20 minute drive away.

How easy it is to answer the call of instant access to others. Especially when you’ve found yourself feeling isolated, while home with your children.

The pull to go online, or build your social circle, email friends, go on twitter, text, join a cycling club, interact with others, is a very strong one.

It is for me.

How do we, as women, find the time that is necessary to do what matters in life? The important things. To devote ourselves entirely to our families is a saintly goal. One that I tried for, but found that pursuit leaving me resentful, lonely, unhappy, and with a clinical case of depression that did not make for a happy home life for anyone.

I enjoy my interaction with others outside of my family. Conversations and quick exchanges between friends can buoy my mood upward for days.

But, again, the question: how do you FIND the time for special moments for your family? Aside from the necessary of keeping house, preparing meals, grocery shopping, working?

And it isn’t only women who are online that are short on time. There are women who exercise faithfully an hour and a half at a time, daily. There are women who delight in being immersed in a good book for at least an hour of their day. There are women who find joy in their work outside of their home, or who work at home.

Where do we find the time to Pause. And really be in our lives.

I had a light bulb moment a few years ago, and it occurred by accident.

Our mornings here, in my quest for efficiency, ironically in hopes of creating a pocket of “worthwhile” time later, were spent in quick, drill like processes.

Breakfast, washed up, dressed, prayer, boom – start the day.

While my children ate, I’d clean up. So streamlined, in and out in 45 minutes.

One particular day, I noticed my oldest son just kept talking to me, coming over to stand next to me at the kitchen sink, and talking. Thank God I felt the tug in my heart to stop the activity I was involved in, and decided I needed to go sit and listen to him.

When he went back to the kitchen table, I followed him. I pulled up the chair next to him, poured myself some orange juice, and sat to look at him while he spoke. I cleared my mind of my mental to do list.

I listened to my boy.

He had plans, ideas of what he thought he might want to do as an adult. I listened, with my eyes on his face instead of the usual downcast look while I did the dishes, in the hopes of getting a jump on my day.

I watched my beautiful son’s face grow more animated, as he drank in my mental presence. I saw his smile burst big and bright, the longer I sat with him.

I felt my heart grow warm with gratitude. I felt nothing and thought of nothing, but this moment with him.

I was Pausing Life for the Moment.

I was living in it, and I was there with him.

This was a connection, this was joy: on an ordinary morning with no special pre-arranged “time for each other.”

Yes, there should still be an intention of creating moments and time for our children. But, simply put, pauses don’t have to be planned in order to happen.

We just have to recognize them.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of time in a day.

Please stop by Good Day, Regular People and let the Empress know about a time you pause your day and connected with your kids.

Pause Life for a Moment- Spilled: Because My Cup Overflows

Sometimes you read a blog and feel you know its writer.  Spilled: Because My Cup Overflows is one of those bloggers for me. After reading about her boys and the joy and challenges they bring I feel I know her. Her writing flows. Her pictures draw you in to take a peek into her family life. You are so going to love the guest post she wrote. I have walked in her shoes and want to choose to wear them in a new way just as she has.
Pause Life for a Moment
I never thought of myself as an angry person.
According to all the stories my parents–and others who knew me in those days–tell me of my growing-up years, I was a calm, easy-going, eager-to-please child who never threw temper tantrums and who got along well with siblings and friends. When I lived in San Diego as a young married woman and had to learn to drive on busy, multi-lane highways (so different from the country roads surrounding my parents’ home, where the biggest traffic challenge was passing the horses and buggies of Old Order Mennonites!), I didn’t experience the road rage that is so common in southern California. Even when we lived in Israel and dealt with the frustrations of life in an intense foreign culture, my husband was the one who occasionally blew his top and vented his anger on, for example, a landlord who wasn’t doing anything about the lack of electricity in our apartment, in the middle of a scorching summer, in a very hot climate, in which our young son was suffering (albeit mildly) because of the landlord’s negligence.
I don’t intend, by these examples, to give the impression that I was perfect in this area and never got frustrated; but I do believe it’s fair to say that anger wasn’t one of my besetting sins.
But then I had children. And, as we all know, that changes everything.
When exactly did my struggle with anger begin? When my first child was a baby? No, I
don’t think so. I may have been extra-tired and overly-worried, but I don’t remember my frustration level being through the roof. I do know, however, that by the time my first child was a preschooler and my second a toddler, I had a problem: a daily struggle with anger.
To be honest, I didn’t even like to admit it was anger. “I’m stressed!” I would say. “I feel really frustrated!” But at the root of that, when I was transparent enough to peel off the false labels I attached to it, lay an ugly, rotten, pile of…yes…anger.
Thankfully, my anger was controlled by some heavy-duty fences, and those boundaries stayed intact: no physical violence against my children, no calling them names, no yelling and screaming and cursing. But there was one tell-tale sign that I couldn’t cover up, no matter how hard I tried to maintain a facade of being calm, cool, and collected.
There was an edge in my voice. Kids are smart, you know? It didn’t take my sons long to realize that when they heard that particular tone,Mommy was mad.
Is there anything more heart-breaking than asking your children what they see in you that you should change and hearing them say, “Your harsh words”? How many times have I apologized to a sad-hearted child–”I’m sorry I spoke harshly to you”–and heard the quiet response, “That’s OK, Mommy. I forgive you”?
In the years since I first admitted to myself that, when it came to my children, I had an anger problem, I have searched for the answer, the solution to my wrath, the antidote to the poison-before it does lasting harm to my children (of whom there are now four–all dearly-loved boys! ). I haven’t discovered a magic cure, but I have found grace for the journey. And sometimes, a light breaks forth and shines unexpectedly, providing illumination for the next step of the path to peaceful motherhood. Here is my latest insight…
One day recently, I began my morning by having this question pop into my head: Is there anything so important today that would justify me getting angry with my children? Is there any meeting or appointment so vital that it would be better for me to get that horrible edge in my voice as I rushed my children along rather than be late to it? Is there any household task so essential that it would validate my frustration if my sons interrupt or distract me from it? Is there anything–ANYTHING at all–crucial enough to be worth the cost of me getting angry?
Because there is a cost. There always is, usually paid in the downcast glances and slumped shoulders of little ones whose hearts bleed silently when Mommy speaks harshly.
When I ask myself those questions, the answer is painfully obvious. No! There is nothing that important! The cost of anger is too high; I refuse to pay it.
Because of that decision, I am better equipped to pause life for a moment as I go into my dressing room, so to speak–to shed the garments of stress and anxiety and pressure and frustration and anger, and to clothe myself with, as Paul instructs us in Colossians 4:12, “tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”
Forget name brands–those are the kinds of clothes I long for! 🙂
What are you longing for?

 

Pause Life for a Moment- Things I Can’t Say

Pause Life for a Moment
 
 Shell of Things I Can’t Say is wonderful and it is hard to put into words how amazing she is. I met her in real life at the Type A Mom Conference last fall and she was as friendly, a personable and real as you would think she is after reading her posts. I went to the conference hoping to learn about blogging and I did. A lot of what I learned was from Shell. She is not a blogger who is guarded about the secrets to her success. Shell shared blogging insights I really needed to hear to move forward in blogging. I will be forever thankful that she is who she is and she shares it with others.
 
So much of my time as a mom, I was looking forward to an event in the future:
 
*When my baby would sleep through the night
 
*When my baby could walk
 
*When the next baby was born
 
*When the NEXT baby was born
 
*When all my boys are out of diapers
 
*When we’re past the stroller stage
 
*When all my boys are in school
 
Thinking everything would get simpler and easier.
 
Rush, rush, rush through all the frantic moments.
 
But then I take a good look at my boys. My oldest, who is finishing his first year of kindergarten. My middle, who just turned five. My BABY who is turning 3 in a few weeks.
 
And I realize that I don’t have babies any more. My boys are getting so big.
 
And I want to pause life for a moment.
 
Pause it while they still fit in my lap.
 
Pause it while they still want me to tuck them in at night.
 
Pause it while they still want to hug me in front of their friends.

 

Pause it while they think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.
 
Pause it while they are my little boys.
 
Time is moving fast enough. I don’t need to wish away their childhoods, just to get to the “easy” stuff.

 

 Something tells me it’s not going to be easy, anyway.

 
So, I’d like to pause life for a moment and enjoy my babies. I just won’t call them that where they can hear.
 
Please stop by Things I Can’t Say and let Shell know how much you have enjoyed this post.