Life as a parent can get terribly busy and overwhelming, but taking a pause to re-focus can help you attend to your responsibilities in a more peaceful and joyful frame of mind. Your “normal” doesn’t have to be frantic.

Sometimes it takes a weekend away to give you a new perspective. As you know, I have been struggling to give the best of myself in all the roles I play. And from the comments and interactions on Facebook, I’m not the only one who finds it hard to maintain inner peace when so much is expected from us as working women and mothers.

The guys can struggle a bit too, carrying the weight of busy family life on their shoulders. I know my Jacob goes to work, then comes home to a crabby wife who looks half-dead because her three children have zapped all energy from her. He jumps in with helping with the feeding, bathing and putting our girls to sleep. Then once our girls are in bed, Jacob will clean up the kitchen while I head to my office to do my paid work for the day.

Living Better

As a result of our ‘new’ routine, I have felt stretched, burdened and disconnected. A small prompting in my heart has told me something has got to change.

But it’s normal. This is what working parents have to do to survive.

Well, I’m not buying it and I want a different type of normal.

My calling is far greater than living day to day, just making it through each 24-hour block that makes each week, which makes each year. There’s more to life than just trying to make ends meet.

The best news is your calling is more than what you do each day, each week and each year too. It’s time to stop thinking being busy and overworked and tired is normal. It’s not. It’s the devil’s way of keeping you distracted from what’s most important.

But how do you get off the merry-go-round, or at least stop it from spinning so fast?

You can’t stop the merry-go-round, but you can remain grounded and peaceful by focusing on what is important and standing strong when life becomes chaotic around you.

Time Out

On the weekend, Mum, Phoebe and I headed down to Sydney to Hillsongs’ women’s conference, Colour.

We went last year (Phoebe was there too but in my tum) and it was spectacular. Every aspect of the conference was to inhibit a new perspective in women’s hearts. And this year’s conference did the same.

I realised this weekend that I have been striving and I haven’t been thriving. I’ve been using my own strength to deal with life, rather than centring my life on God’s truth and using His strength to do what I’ve got to do.

God knows we have busy lives and that much is expected from us to put food on the table and bring up our kids in a stable home, but He doesn’t want us to be overwhelmed by our responsibilities.

As you know, I don’t shy away from sharing my faith and my personal stories with you online. My prayer is always that what I share with you encourages you. For me personally, having faith is the easy part, but living it is often harder because I am easily distracted.

Attitude of Gratitude

Colour is the perfect distraction for overworked women. There was a message for every woman who attended Colour on the weekend, and I got my message loud and clear on Thursday night when Bobbie Houston spoke.

There is no time for fluffy Christianity. We know that there is evil happening in all corners of the world. I believe arrogance and busyness and selfishness are our main downfalls when it comes to living a life that God has called us all to live.

The message was not to abandon the responsibilities of life that we have invited into our lives, but it’s simply to do them with peace and joy in our hearts — and to stop focusing on ourselves.

I believe being busy with an ungrateful, negative and always complaining heart is causing us to be naïve about faith and what really matters in life.

I got a lot out of the conference on the weekend and I want to share what I learned with you. I wish I could have written down notes about what was said, but my arms were often full holding Phoebe — who, by the way, was amazing at the conference.

But now, it’s a new week. The girls are up and Jacob has the day off so that we can spend time together catching up on what happened over the weekend.

If I could encourage you this morning, it’s to say that right now whatever struggles you have going on in your heart, God knows about them and He’s concerned by them too. Pray about them and ask for inner peace, so you don’t feel so overburdened. If you don’t believe, why not send through an email to me so I can pray for you?

What are you excited about this week?

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Originally published at The Plumbette. Photo by Sarah Chai.