Sometimes I think that if I didn’t have other things (reading, writing, storytelling, music, teaching) in addition to keeping my home I probably wouldn’t enjoy “staying home,” but it’s only partially true.

My best analogy just now is to electricity. I’ve proven I can live contentedly without it, with the right attitude, but life is (forgive me) so much easier to enjoy with than without, I see no compelling reason to stretch myself that way.

Thankfully, God hasn’t asked me to do without these things I enjoy, and He’s shown me their place in my life just now: mixed with my children or spread thinly around the edges.

He’s also given me a “vision” (as it were) of their possibilities in the years to come.

This is where reminders such as that late chapter in Home by Choice are encouraging to me; they show my now-locked (think: land-locked) mind the possibilities once I reach the “coast” of empty-nesting.

I can touch and look at water in lakes, pools and streams now, but my current job doesn’t allow me to live by the ocean. I remind myself to be content in the wait because I know this job will eventually be over, whether I want it to be or not.

Hearing stories about women who fulfilled their second callings second helps me remain patient and content. I am such a *now* person I need the now stories of others to assure me I can wait for the train to arrive.

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This doesn’t mean I am just hanging on until my kids are grown. It means that I have the same double vision in my home life as I have in my spiritual life.

All of we who are waiting for an eternal and infinitely better kingdom are only doing a good job if we are also doing everything in our power to equip ourselves and our children to live well in this one.

As a mother I am aware both of my present time with my children, and that it is not an end in itself.

• I train them to be the kind of people I want to be around, not only because I am around them a lot, but also because I want them to be pleasant company to others.
• Frequently I remind myself that others will benefit from what I have cultivated for my own enjoyment. I want to train myself not to be jealous or resentful of that, that it’s part of my job.

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No one knows how they are going to die until they are dying.

A doctor told me this, very gently, when I tried to argue with him about my grandmother, saying she wouldn’t “be that way” he described her near her death.

I don’t know if I’m going to suddenly wig out when all my kids leave home, (not likely, but unknown), but at least for now I look at each stage as it passes according to its season, and I know that God has done all things well.

Each stage is just the right length. It is enough time to do what God has assigned us to do or He would have made the season longer :)

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So, seeking peace, I pray for the courage to resist justifying myself to that person who really doesn’t care.

And I find myself very grateful that God has made provision for me to delight in this assignment he’s given me for now, while preparing me for the next one.

I feel so thankful that this is a place I don’t have to fight my own nature in order to be obedient.