Since my 2-week stint in bed with a concussion at the beginning of this year, I have been learning a lot about slowing down, being intentional and what living actually looks like. I know, those are all almost cliches at this point; every time you turn around there's a new book or blog post about living in the moment and savoring the now. But I think that's because there are so many of us that are searching for that 'perfect' formula of enjoying where we are, when we are there. If it wasn't a common struggle, it wouldn't be selling like it is.
While intentionality can be applied to so many areas, I've been pondering it in my current roles of 'mom' and 'homemaker'. I keep seeing the quote 'Wherever you are, be all there'. It's all over Pinterest in cute fonts and chalkboard prints. The quote is from Jim Elliot, a missionary who was killed by the people he was called to serve. When I Googled (I love that that's a verb) the quote, I found that it's only half of what he said. Here's the whole thing:
“Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
Interesting. I've seen the phrase used to remind us to focus on the present, be in the moment. But I've never seen the last half of it. I think that the last half may be more important that the first. It's more than just 'being all there' in whatever you're doing. It's realizing that 'where you are', if, in fact, you believe it truly is where God wants you to be, should have all of yourself poured into it. We were made to bring God glory (or, as Graham says when saying his Catechism: 'to gwoify God'), and it would then make sense to live life to the full where.we.are.
This has been a hard thing for me the past few months. I quit my job in preparation for moving halfway across the country, to be close to family and live a slower pace of life. But, God had other plans. It took a while for me to realize that maybe all of that was more of a push to get us to do those things here. Where we are. Slow down. Focus on family. Be OK with staying home. Not run everywhere all the time. Not spread ourselves so thin. Be OK with saying no. Raise some chickens. We don't have to be in Iowa, we don't even have to be in the county to do those things.
It's been a hard thing to do. I've had weeks that I packed so full that I was barely home (stay-at-home mom can easily mean 'We fill our days outside of the home because it's easier', or, at least for me it can). Part of me was running from home, because it wasn't what I planned and, honestly, the monotony of dishes and laundry and 'Mommy come pway twains with me!' can be as mind-dulling as it is simultaneously exhausting. It's very hard some days to feel like it matters, especially compared to the tangible ways I could see my days mattering when I worked in the human services field. When most of your day has consisted of cleaning, cooking, cleaning after cooking, and trying to pretend you have an imagination that matches your two year old's while you're really thinking of all the things you could be doing instead, it's hard to see the value in what you did that day.
That's a hard thing to do in our culture. Our need for the next best thing, or even to 'live life to the full' may cause us to feel like our current situation isn't doing that. Rather than choosing to see that maybe this, this where we are is where we can fully live, we choose to think 'if only' that it would then be full. We try to fill our lives so we can be 'all there' in what seems the ideal, rather than being 'all there' where we are and letting that fill us.
So I'm finding that my 'being all there' doesn't have to necessarily be grandiose or even have tangible progress at the end of the day. Because if this - this 'just being a mom' - is where I'm supposed to be right now, then I will be the most satisfied, and most fulfill my role, when I am all in. Where I am. And as time goes and seasons change, different opportunities will arise, new phases of life will come. And as they do, big or small, I am seeing that where we are is without a doubt, always, the best place to be.
