I Need the Mundane

I’ve been forgetting about the mundane, lately.

I consider the mundane to include doing the every day tasks that keep life out of chaos: doing the dishes, the laundry, cleaning up bedrooms, dining rooms, bathrooms, and living rooms, writing grocery lists that contain healthy food, doing the grocery shopping, preparing educational lessons, crafts, and all such tasks that I would much rather not do.

If I had my way, I would spend my days writing, spreading ideas, soaking up the sun, reading, and basically focusing on my needs. But that life certainly wouldn’t lead to a life of integrity or character or sacrifice. And what of my children? Who would train them or teach them in the ways of truth, goodness, discipline, and the importance of not leaving clean laundry unfolded in the laundry basket?

I could raise my babies on TV and “mommy’s busy” or I could raise them with play and “let’s clean up together and then read some books.”

I could spend bits of time with them here and there and hope/pray for the best.

Or, I could do the work.

I really want to do the work because I really don’t want to look back on my life and regret the decisions I made.

I don’t want to look back and say, “why didn’t I just turn off the TV?” “Why didn’t I play with my babies more?” “Why didn’t I teach them how to pray?” “Why didn’t invest in their minds when they are little sponges?”

I know I’m not going to get this “do the work” thing right, because I’m selfish and tired and some days, just bored. But I’m going to keep looking at my mama-resolution and keep trying. One day at a time.

I’m going to keep trying because the souls in my care deserve intentionality from their mama. If I don’t train them and teach them, who will? If I neglect my responsibility, they will be taught, by TV, the culture, their peers, but will the teaching be things that are beautiful and good and true?

And mundane?

Because I want my children to know how to scrub a toilet and hang their clothes and take a hurting friend or a new mama a meal.

I want them to serve, to be humble, to have self-control, to be patient, and kind, and mostly…

to love.

I think I will teach them the most about love if I give myself over to the “mundane” of life. If I give myself to the tasks that make a home, a home they will want to tuck into their hearts and hold on to. A home that offered them life and and an overflow of the kind of love that leaves the comfortable and lends a hand.

A home that I will look back on, Lord willing, in my old age and say, “I chose the beautiful mundane, and I don’t regret it one bit.”