I keep busy.
That’s probably an understatement. As a homeschooling mom, with three of my daughters six years old and under, I am always doing something. Just the everyday tasks of life keep me busy. When you add anything extra I almost feel like The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or perhaps akin to those folks in the commercials who haven’t had a V8. I feel off balance, off kilter, and completely overwhelmed. I’ve about accepted that’s the phase of life I am in right now.
This day this past week was like any other day. I had completed school with my daughters, and since we had plans outside of the home for the evening there was a bit more flurry of activity than usual. Sometimes, make that most times, when you have small children just getting out the door is a huge ordeal. On this particular afternoon I had given baths, and I was assisting my three smalls girls to get dressed. Simultaneously I was cleaning the house, or perhaps make that straightening it up to the point that it wasn’t quite so much of an eyesore, and I was also preparing dinner to cook in the crockpot while we were away.
As I washed off the potatoes I had just peeled my toddler came around the corner with a mischievous grin.
“Get your shoes.” I instructed sweetly. “Get your shoes if you want to go.”
I started cubing potatoes and adding them to the pot. Within a minute or two my toddler returned with a proud smile on her face and a single shoe in her hands.
“Get the other one.” I told her. “You need two shoes.”
And off she went around the corner. I finished preparing dinner, and after turning the crockpot timer to three hours I walked around the corner where my baby girl had last gone. I was confronted immediately with her handiwork. In the hall floor lay not only every shoe she owned, but also a dozen or so others belonging to the rest of the family. She was searching tirelessly among the pile for the mate to her pink sandal. I quickly glimpsed it hiding in plain sight in a corner of the hall, and I sat down in the floor to gather up and match shoes.
I wasn’t flipping out, yelling, or anything like that, although to be honest I’d been known to do all of the above on occassion, especially when in a hurry to head out the door. Despite my lack of frustration I suppose my four year old sensed something in me, just below the surface. It was that tense, harried persona that was the norm for a busy, chaotic life. My four year old had come up behind me quietly, and I didn’t even realize she was there until she spoke.
“Just breathe, Mom.” She said in her signature, squeaky voice.
My mind went to breathing exercises and counting backwards from ten to ward off rage, a common technique in anger management.
“Who told you about that?” I asked in amusement.
She answered quickly, “you know. The song. Just breathe.” Then she began to sing the chorus.
Later I pulled up the song on my phone, and as I drove down the road with my children buckled up in the back behind me, tears rolled down my eyes as I listened to words that surely had been written about me.
Alarm clock screaming bare feet hit the floor
It’s off to the races everybody out the door
I’m feeling like I’m falling behind, it’s a crazy life
Ninety miles an hour going fast as I can
Trying to push a little harder trying to get the upper hand
So much to do in so little time, it’s a crazy life
It’s ready, set, go it’s another wild day
When the stress is on the rise in my heart I feel you say just
Breathe, just breatheCome and rest at my feet
And be, just be
Chaos calls but all you really need
Is to just breathe
Third cup of joe just to get me through the dayWant to make the most of time but I feel it slip away
I wonder if there’s something more to this crazy life
I’m busy, busy, busy, and it’s no surprise to see
That I only have time for me, me, me
There’s gotta be something more to this crazy life
I’m hanging on tight to another wild day
When it starts to fall apart in my heart I hear you say just
Breathe, just breatheCome and rest at my feet
And be, just be
Chaos calls but all you really need
Is to take it in fill your lungsThe peace of God that overcomes
Just breathe
So let your weary spirit rest
Lay down what’s good and find what’s best
Just breathe
Just breathe, just breatheCome and rest at my feet
And be, just be
Chaos calls but all you really need
Is to just breathe
Just breathe
-Jonny Diaz
Life was crazy, chaotic, and beyond busy, but it was also so abundantly blessed. In the moments where I felt overwhelmed I was best reminded to just breathe. My four year old daughter delivered a word from the Lord that I really needed right at that moment. Perhaps it’s one you needed to hear today.
Just breathe.
Ericka Hokkanen says
This is the best bit of advice!!
Dave Parsons says
I retired first to get away from a job that seemed to be piling on more & more every year as our commanders far removed in their ivory towers & far removed from knowing what it took to accomplish our jobs kept pounding us with seminars, meetings and repeating it through our immediate bosses to do more with less! It is good to try and accomplish more and cut waste but there comes a limit and they still want more of our time and sweat so it was good to retire and breathe! I wanted to experience some of that boredom other retirees had told me they found when they said that’s enough! But I haven’t found any of that craved for boredom yet and neither has my wife! We still have trouble finding time to breathe! Caring for her brother with cerebral palsy up until his death a short while ago plus now still caring for her 93 year old mother plus preparing for Kids’ Church and the myriad things that life throws at you really takes a bite out of our time to breathe! But your child’s advice is so true! God expects us to! Thank you for these beautiful words! It helps us greatly especially as we get older since breathing becomes much more important! Trust me!!!!
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much!