Finding Sweet Spot

     Every morning it’s the same. Wake up before the sun does. Get the coffee going and the meals made before little feet with beautiful loud voices are up. After daddy leaves it time to eat while mommy goes and prays. Then comes the daily chores of getting dressed and beds made. 
Some days we get going on school early and I think, “yay” we are going to make it today. But most days I look at the clock and cry because it is almost spent yet there is so much more to do. 
Lunch rolls around and then quiet time. Finally a break from the day, which I need because the house is looking yet again like a disheveled mess. This is a sight I can’t stand in the least! Pardon my grinch like response. The look of it is so overwhelming to a type triple ’A’ person like me. I go to the pantry and eat away while looking at the disorganization that lingers in every room. 
     From that point on I am on my phone or computer trying to help others. And I want to, I want to so bad! But as I do, in the other room my children live life without me. And I will be honest there are several more times I get on my phone to take a break but with all the anger in the world it only makes things worse. 
     By dinner time if I’m lucky I planned something good but rush to get it done. In reality it looks like hot dogs or nuggets again. I’ll go without because the guilt from what I ate earlier still weighs on me. But who am I kidding here?! Once the kids are put to bed I’ll go back to the pantry because now the cravings kick in again. 
     It is the same day after day of attempting to get it right but never succeeding. Where is the sweet-spot? Why can’t I seem to grasp it? I know what I need to do yet I still don’t do it! I just want to find that sweet-spot in life where I have things balanced for more then one day. The spot where days are light and carefree but also ordered and routine. Days where I am smiling way more then crying. What is smiling again? It’s been so long since I’ve been able to hold onto it for more then a second or two. Crying is the norm that has stood by my side for almost a whole year now. 
     So tomorrow I will try again. Tomorrow I will wake up with expectations that it will be the day I find the sweet-spot for my routine, for my home, for my family... for me. 

---

     ​Finding Sweet-spot came to me a while back. That is usually how it works with these “nudges from God”. I’ll be nice and comfy, I’ll start reflecting on something and BOOM! A title will come to me and I literally have to act in that moment. Don’t tell anyone, but one of these excerpts came to me while in church service. So for the better part of my pastor’s sermon I was writing. Lucky for me it just looked like I was taking notes. And in all fairness it was what my pastor said that opened the door for God to “BOOM” me. Ha! Anyway, I have also learned the hard way that if I do not act upon the boom I will try to come back to it later and I have writers block. Even now I have a few in progress because I missed the opportune time.
            Anyway, moving right along. So with sweet-spot is easy to see that I am at a place where things aren’t going “my way” aka. “great”. I know that God probably is in heaven looking at the big picture going, “Simmer down Christen”, but I can’t see that picture. Have I mentioned I am type AAA? Well if I haven’t you can see why I am struggling with life.
            Life is so… messy! I am not good with messes. When my house is messy, I am messy. I don’t shower like I should, I don’t routine like I should, I don’t love like I should, I don’t do much like I should. But when my house is clean, wow it is a big difference. Everything else has a lighter feel to it. I am happier, I am healthier, life is better. Don’t smite me down God for my lack of vision after all You made me this way for a reason.
            Right now every room in the house is messy. It’s slightly dirty too, but mostly messy. What deflates my bubble of motivation is I just got EVERY ROOM organized last month! Talk about slapping a person down, am I right? As a mom we spend every ounce of energy trying to please everyone else and it’s never enough or worse never appreciated. When I get our home in order and routine and no one tries to help keep it that way I will eventually throw up my hands and join in. I get to a point where I just can’t keep it up every day.
            So that is where I am now. Homeschool disorganized, my health in bad shape, my home feels like a nightmare (seriously I have nightmares about things like this), my marriage is more like two roomates. When you don’t have time to love on yourself you really don’t want your spouse to even look at you let alone touch you (and that is NOT OKAY). The devil loves to put a wedge in our marriages by putting up the roommate divider. My children have a mom right now that is either frowning or crying or has a “blah” expression on her face. And none of this is okay we me!
            But here is the problem. I don’t know what to do to get back to the sweet – spot of life. As I type I have canceled all my outreaching to other people. No more meetings for my mommies, no more essential oil continuing education (well that’s not entirely true. I had one already planned for next month. Then that is it.) and I’m saying no to most things. I am 100% in a rut… again and it is one of the longest I have had.
            Depressing huh? Yep, it is. But this is life for all of us. We have our ups and we have are downs. Sometimes those downs are really really REALLY down. But, through all this I have stayed consistent in one thing. For almost the entire year I have been talking and meeting with my Lord in a way that looking back now has kept me going all year. I am not in the sweet-spot of life right now, or so I think. I have no routine that I can stick to for more than a couple of days, but that is okay. God is going to pull me through the waters of this time in my life. There will come a day in the near future that I will have it all together again. It may start now or it may not start for another year or so. But here is the revelation. At the beginning of this year I was hopeful that it would be my most joyful year yet. If I go off my emotions and all the negative things that were my daily life throughout the months it looks to be just the opposite. A joyless year. WRONG!
            The sweet-spot in life was always there. The sweet-spot in life is the joy we find, wait for it… in God. This entire year I asked for something that God gave me. I asked for it to be full of joy and He gave it to me. The problem was my idea of joy wasn’t really joy, I wanted happiness. There is nothing in life that can steal your joy if you always remember your joy comes from the Lord. If your joy comes from you being happy, or from stuff or even from your kids then you will always be let down. Our Lord is the only true joy and now I see that. So am I still looking for sweet-spot? You bet, because right now it looks a lot different than last year, so I constantly have to be aware of it in the mist of the chaos! Because the thing about the sweet-spot is it changes as life goes on. The sweet-spot could look like organization and tidiness, it could look like living most of the days outside exploring and playing, it could look like anything. This is not a cruel joke God plays on us. No, God just knows what kind of sweet-spot we need even if it doesn’t look like how we want. So find the joy that is your current sweet-spot because it is still there mommy, waiting on you to be content in it.

​1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus ~

​Romans 12:12
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer ~