No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well. Margaret Thatcher
One lives with so many bad deeds on one's conscience and some good intentions in one's heart.
John Dewey
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Peter Drucker
Intentions. I have so many intentions. My days are filled with good intentions. So many I never follow up on.
- Spend time in the Word and pray daily. Instead, I wake up and only say "Thank you for a new day and thank you for getting me through yesterday."
- Encourage my girls to spend time with God and have family devotions. Instead, all I get done is prayers at bedtime.
- Know everything about the girl's day. Their up's, their down's and keep track of ALL of their homework. Instead, the afternoon and evening gets away from me and all I know about their homework is what they tell me is due.
- Don't lose my temper. Instead, I find myself getting frustrated and yelling more then holding it together.
- Organize the girl's closets. Instead, I just get the dirty laundry cleaned and folded.
- Put all the folded laundry away. Instead, I make the big girls put away their own clothes while the little 2 and I pick out outfits straight from the couch.
- Make a healthy dinner. Instead, I can barely make myself cook. Every day starts with wonderful ideas swimming around in my head. And 4x out of 7 what I cook is last minute copies of what we had the week before.
- Dust and vacuum at least 1x every 2 weeks. Uhmmm, where is my vacuum?
- Clean off the kitchen counters. Instead, I just make a few more piles and pretend it's not so bad.
- Hug my kids and tell them I love them. Instead. No wait. I DO this one!!!!
- Get 4 girls and myself up and ready to leave the house by 7:20 to get to school on time. Check on this one too!
- Go to bed thankful. I'm usually thankful that the day is over, but that counts right?
- End the day with as many kids alive that I started with. Now I'm just making stuff up so I can have more to check off.
SO feeling you lately, girl - absolutely right there with you.
ReplyDeleteWanted to encourage you that something Pastor Rick said in his message yesterday really struck me (and no, it wasn't about S-E-X, even though that is our sermon series right now!) - as he was talking about affair-proofing our marriages, he said that we should not feel overwhelmed by his message because we 'will never be able to do it under our own power.'
If I remember correctly, he compared it to duct-taping his broken tree back together, only to have it look good for 3 days and then die. When our main source of strength is our own, it will run out - many days more quickly than others. We may be able to make things 'look good' for a short time, but then everything that builds up eventually causes that dam to burst and all of our good intentions wash away.
That one statement convicted me more than anything he said, simply because I KNOW God has been asking me to let Him be my source by spending time - valuable time - with Him every morning before my day begins. And He is showing me more and more that I cannot handle the stuff of life - the stuff He knows is coming - by myself. He wants to encourage and support me, and He wants to see me find success in all that I do (just like you and I for each other - just like a trusted friend). But He knows what it takes, and He is just asking me to listen, to obey, and to see that He truly has my best interests at heart (just like we desire for our children).
Let's stop beating ourselves up and instead choose to follow His leading, and I can only imagine how many of those 'good intentions' we will both see fulfilled!
Love you, girl! :)