My husband doesn’t realize that I was still listening when I left his class to tend the baby. Sometimes I will watch (or listen as the case may be) when he doesn’t know, and like watching sleeping children, it is a good thing to do. As I was listening to him teach, he said something that caught my attention: We are saved by grace, but so often we live by works. When really, we ought to live by His grace as well.

He was speaking last week on “Perseverance of the Saints,” and I was glad to be reminded of God’s hand in bringing His saints to the end. We will see Him one day, and it will be of His own good grace. This thought came to mind as I read this:

I am a 28-year-old homemaker that gets easily overwhelmed, depressed, and/or lazy pretty easily. I have a 4½-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter. I have been married to my high school sweetheart for 8 years.

I read about becoming a hard worker in the home, raising many children, homeschooling, learning the art of homemaking (skills to employ in the home) and hospitality and I want to sink in my chair and take a nap. I read and read and take in a ton of info but rarely put it into practice. I have a college degree and yet I feel so incapable or at least just lazy with my home life… Do you have any idea what can help me?

Another nap. :doh_tb:

What does God’s grace have to do with the small dailyness of life? Everything, really. There are many tips and tricks for motivating ourselves to get the job done: laying out clothes the night before, wearing shoes in the house (I don’t know why this helps me…), making lists, and creating some routine so that the children have a sense for “what’s next.” Women of the “old school” seem to have a better propensity to get things done, as opposed to our generation who grew up on a steady TV diet that encouraged us to, “Have it your way.”

Doing what we ought is a simple thing, really, yet it falls in the category of “easier said than done.” Motivation is difficult sometimes. Life is filled with choices and we choose that which we most want to do. Shall I fold the laundry while reading to the toddler and bouncing Baby Cakes or shall I turn on a video for the kids and take a nap? Hard choices. I know this because I don’t always choose what I ought.

But back to grace. So often women will use these common things as a measure of our spiritual conditions. If my girls don matching bonnets while they recite their catechism in between bites of homemade bread, then I must be doing a good job. When really, Jesus tells us there is another measure entirely in Matthew 22:36-38: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”

If we love Him, we will obey Him. This might work itself out in the things you describe. But the first question is this, “How can I love Him more?” Every glass of juice poured is a chance to do it for Him. There is no greater motivator in daily, common life than loving Christ more.