ABC'S of a Godly Home - Day G

Day G - Give and Get

Spiritual Challenge G - Give your best to your family. It is so easy for us to get wrapped up in housework and the busyness of life that we forget we have a family to take care of not just a home. Our family needs us but they don't just need our leftovers, they need our best. If you are too busy or too tired to sit and snuggle with your little ones, to read to them or play with them, then I suggest you take a look at your priorities. Are you giving so much of yourself to other projects that you don't have enough left to give to your husband and children? It is a good thing to want to serve at church, to help a friend in need and to keep an orderly home, but when your family starts to suffer because of it, it is no longer a good thing. I don't believe extracurricular activities are bad for our children, but when they take too much time away from the family, they can be. Our families should get the best of us because they should be our first priority, next to God. Your challenge is to look at your normal daily life and see if there might be some activities or projects you need to step back from for awhile. See if there are things that are taking too much of your time that are not benefiting your family. Seek God's guidance in this and see how He leads you and then discuss it with your husband as well. Your husband will probably see areas you don't, listen to his cautions.

Physical Challenge Day G - Get to the nitty gritty. Ok, today is the day to start getting our schedule together and putting it on paper. First you need all your daily, weekly and monthly lists as well as the chart of 30 minute time slots.  Now, before you jump ahead I want to suggest a few things. I want you to make sure you have allowed time for Bible study each day as well as just some fun time with your children (yes, put it on your schedule). I also suggest that each day you make a time slot for your weekly and monthly chores. Ok, here is what you are going to do. Look at your daily list and it should include everything that you need to get done in one day, including a time for your weekly and monthly chores. Now look at your time slot paper, each slot should be for thirty minutes. Take a minute to look at this post and click on the picture of my schedule to make it larger. Seeing it may help you visualize and understand while I explain it to you. I suggest that you use sticky notes instead of writing directly on your schedule, but if you don't have any, just use a pencil. I suggest this because after you start using your schedule you may realize you need to change a few things to make it work better for you. Now, don't write down every single chore on your schedule, you make groupings or routines or whatever you want to call it and write that down on your schedule in the time slot. For example, instead of listing get up,make bed, shower, start laundry on my schedule, I write AM routine instead. I do the same for my noon routine and my bedtime routine. (If you need more help with this let me know and I'll do a post about it). Then I keep a list of what is included in each routine in my notebook (also known as my home management binder).  I also keep my list of daily, weekly and monthly house chores in my notebook for easy reference, then on my schedule at the time I want to clean, I will put "keeper of my home". Then I refer to my lists in my notebook to see what chores to do that day. Does that make sense? Now, I know you might need more than thirty minutes to do all of your cleaning, just use however many time slots you need for each task. I also include a time labeled "Proverbs 31", this is where I do tasks such as making bread, muffins, stock my quick mixes, sewing etc. I found it much easier to divide those tasks into different days, keep the list in my notebook and just refer to it as "Proverbs 31" on my schedule. Clear as mud? Your challenge: Pray about what times would be best to do each thing on your daily list and then start writing them down on your timed schedule. It doesn't have to be perfect and you can always rearrange things later if you discover it isn't working for you. I pray I explained it well enough you understand how to do this to make it work best for you. If not, PLEASE let me know and I will try again.

I can't wait to hear from all of you to know how it is going. Have you noticed a difference in your home and in your attitude? I pray you have. Blessings to each of you!

Rashel