A mind to work

I was excited when I saw that the next Book Review Friday assignment is Nehemiah. One of my favourite verses comes from that book: “So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.” (4:6) I love to talk about work, plan work projects, read about how other people are teaching their children to work. It’s the actual work itself that I have trouble with.

It’s been a rough go here at Seven Meadows for the last, oh, about 7 weeks. Well, actually, I could probably go back to October or so, when my annual Christmas panic and subsequent inability to do anything productive set in. But for the sake of the topic at hand, I will focus on the last two months or so.

The first trimester of pregnancy can be a very difficult time. I find the nausea a little more manageable this time, but I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my life. I have a lot more to manage this time: I have older kids getting behind in their older schoolwork because I’m not up to planning and correcting, a toddler who requires constant supervision, and an almost thirty-eight-year-old body which is constantly reminding me that pregnancy is a whole lot different now than when I was twenty-something.

To top it all off, we are just on the other side of that horrible virus from which all of North America seems to be recovering. I’ve just spent five days trying not to cry. Six people with diarrhea + one pregnant woman + one bathroom. Somehow we survived.

All that to say.

It’s been rough. We have been in survival mode. It is when we have to go into survival mode that we find out what we’re made of and what we aren’t made of. In the past, these downtimes have always left me somewhat encouraged because my kids rose to meet the challenge. Let’s just say that this time around, the challenge is getting old and the response has been somewhat sub-par. I’ve been a little concerned (to say the least) about the work ethic and quality standards I’ve been observing. I have obviously let some important things slide. Mr. Man, do we have work to do.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to chat with a lady who really enjoys my sister’s blog. She made a comment that made me laugh heartily on the inside, and I wish my sister had been there to hear it. This lady has enjoyed reading about our recent acquisition, #59, and said that she’d like to take her kids over to my sister’s place for a few days so they could learn how to work.

Good one! Guess what? My sister’s kids don’t know how to work, either. (And yes, I have her permission to say that.) That’s part of the reason why she and her husband are more than willing to take on new responsibilities like a big garden, an old home that needs repair, laying hens and the family cow that will add to their daily workload significantly. They give their children chores to do, not because they have already proven themselves capable, but in the hopes that someday they will. We learn to work by working. And for some of us, it takes our whole lives!

I’ve written plenty about what I expect from my kids. Please don’t ever assume that my kids are good workers because I’m expecting them to pull their weight. I’m expecting them to pull their weight in the desperate attempt to make good workers out of them someday. Someday way, way in the future. The more I talk to older moms, the more I get the feeling that it’s going to be a good eighteen years of blood, sweat and tears and then the rest of my life praying, but I believe that if we lay a good groundwork now (a la Proverbs 22:6 and Deuteronomy 6), some happy day I will be pleasantly surprised that my kids turned out okay after all.

So we are in training. I envy my sister her big garden (we’ll try to remedy that this year), her chickens and cow, and her husband’s work schedule that allows him to spend more time teaching their boys boy things. My husband is a great father and I am thankful for his sales job, but he does have to be more creative (and self-sacrificing) with his off time in order to spend enough time with our boys.

And guess what else? We don’t do it because we’re saints and it comes naturally to us. We do it because we’re not and it doesn’t. We’re selfish and we’d rather spend our time doing what we want, and don’t think for a minute we don’t have our share of pity parties over it. In training up our kids, we are training up ourselves. We’re learning to raise these kids the way that honors God and asking Him to make us content in that, and we hope to accomplish the same things in us as in our kids: we are learning to have a mind to work, to live the way God intended.

These are the things I have to remind myself of several times each day, when I’m tired, when I’m nauseous, when it seems like we’ve lost too much ground, when I want to give up. Do I make it sound like raising a large family is all grief, struggle and sorrow?  It’s not. Like anything worthwhile, it has its challenges, but the joys far outweigh the growing pains.  Yes, it’s hard, but it’s worth it.