In my shoes...

"In my shoes" is a weekly series that is updated every Thursday. I hope you enjoy the following post and that like me, you will learn more about a different walk of life, which will help you to love better! We love comments or likes and would love to have you follow this series with us. We have some amazing women and amazing topics to share. If you have something YOU would like to write about, please contact me!

Work Week for the average working Mom:

Get up 6:30am, shower, get ready, get kids ready and thankfully because of an awesome husband, I’m not getting a toddler ready or making two lunches OR feeding anyone else breakfast.  My man takes care of all of that and doesn’t bat an eye, it’s just how he rolls.  7:15am, check email/drink coffee, review calendar for schedule of day. 7:30-4pm – work…looks different to every working mom but for me, will include: conference calls (corporate world loves meetings!), replying to emails, scheduling meetings, interviewing candidates, talking with clients, putting out fires, updating boss, discussing projects with peers and so on and hopefully make a snack for kiddo’s that are coming home from school soon.  4pm: Kids come home from school, occasionally they sneak in around 3 pm and are fabulous to get homework done and stay quiet for an hour or so.  Go over homework, talk about day, work on homework, school projects, etc.  4:30pm:Pick up Noah.  5pm: Ah!  Is it dinner time again?!  Think about dinner (which I may have done earlier in the day because I work from home), just depends on how busy work is.  Make dinner.  5:30pm: My man is home hopefully 5:30, we eat dinner, 6pm: Clean up kitchen, then play a game, go outside or watch some tv or we’re off to BSF, Football, Orchestra, etc. 7pm: on nights we’re home, start showers and baths, brush teeth, read a book.  8pm: lights out for three kiddo’s.  8pm-10pm could be laundry, watching tv, catching up on personal email, calls, whatever “regular” stuff of everyday life. 

I have been on both sides of the fence, the working mom and the stay-at-home mom.  Which one would I choose?  The stay at home mom hands down.  Am I thankful God has given me an opportunity to help support my family, working from home doing a job I like for a fantastic company?  Sometimes it seems to good to be true! If I must work, this is indeed good work. God is a giver of amazing gifts, and that doesn’t begin to describe the God I love!

I got my first job when I was 15, I’m pretty sure my mom helped me lie about my age so I could make some $$$.  I don’t remember a time from then to current, not working except for when I was on maternity leave with Noah and got notice I was being laid off from the banking company I worked for.  I was paid severance for 5 months and was able to just enjoy those sweet kiddo’s and my home and not think about the hundreds of “working stuff” that a working parent has to think about each and every day.  I had play dates and took naps, made brownies, lovely dinners, and just relaxed, it was marvelous! 

It was also, very tough work and so I know being a stay-at-home momma is not some cush job where you sit around chillaxin’ all day every day. Laundry never ends, a mess is always ready to be cleaned up, your name is being whispered, cried, screamed or possibly just said from one area of the house at any given moment.  Your phone rings, another volunteer opportunity that you get to mull over and decide is this the thing that’s going to put me over the edge or can I take this on too?  Oh and I’m supposed to feed these children, bath them, exercise, play, sing, dance and wipe bottoms and  boogers.  What I would say to each and every momma that has the privilege (it is most certainly a privilege) is to cherish these moments, even when you want to pull your hair out (which is normal) because they go by so quickly. It is however a huge gift to be able to stay at home or even work part-time and mostly stay-at-home.  Take it from this momma who’s done both.  Whether you stay-at-home or work, pour into others, be a good steward of what God has given you and serve!

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. – I Corinthians 12:4-6

Here’s where I may get in trouble with some friends and that’s ok…

Your husband goes to work everyday, deals with who knows what and comes home to a momma who needs a break. I ask you to appreciate that just because he had lunch out today with some work buddies does not mean he had some relaxing day and is coming home as some blissful renewed husband/daddy.  He had meetings, and clients and bosses and peers and so on all day demanding from him, each person wanting just a little more from him than the day before.  He may love his job, he may hate it, he may be completely indifferent but regardless, he’s worked hard, it’s been a long day for him too.  On the flip side, I would not hesitate to tell each husband I know that being a stay-at-home mom is tough work, that being a corporate employee is sometimes easier than the everyday of mommying.  I think we forgot, sometimes all too easily to put ourselves in others shoes, especially those closest to us.  Be thankful for the provision one provides financially and the other provides running the home, God made us to be one flesh.

“The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” – Genesis 2:18

“So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

 “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. “ Genesis 2:21-24

Like every human being in the world, we face feelings and emotions that are neither from God, nor pleasing to God much less God glorifying.  Guilt is one of those feelings and it comes and goes as a working Mom, more so for me than in that time when I didn’t work and so I pray against those thoughts.  I appreciate those family times more, the quiet days, the rainy stuck at home days. I really look forward to days in my Father’s house where I will rest and have eternal peace…“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” – John 14:2

Can you imagine what He’s prepared?  I can’t begin to.  Asking God to keep an eternal perspective and to use me to advance His kingdom here on Earth is my true heart’s desire.  I’m in the thick of the harvest “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” – Matthew 9:37.  Nearly everywhere I turn I see someone who needs to hear truth, needs hope and so I’m blown away that the God who created the universe would use insignificant me to bring people to Him. He reminds that I’m not insignificant, that I have a creator who is incomprehensible and that in His power, He can use me, even in the corporate world to glorify Him.

Written by Erin Seals.