Doing What I Can
Filed under {!-- ra:000000000f3650a30000000048b47287 --}{if 'Doing What I Can' == '52home' && category_name == '52home'} Motherhood | Parenting Young Children {if:else} Motherhood | Parenting Young Children {/if}My little Claire is now over three months old—hard to believe! She has been such a sweet blessing to our family. This girlie is very loved (albeit a little roughly!) by her brothers, and returns their attention with lots of smiles.
For me, re-entering the newborn season after seven years has been delightful, but its also been an adjustment. It’s added a new layer of complexity to my life of caring for my three active boys. In addition to herding them all into the car to go somewhere, I’m also dragging the carrier (with baby inside!), the diaper bag, stroller, and other assorted gear. I’ve got to fit nursing in between carpool, lunch monitoring, homeschooling my youngest, making dinner and church meetings. I’m absolutely loving it, but I’m also having to adjust my expectations of what I can get done each day.
My quiet times have also changed. It is harder to get a quiet time, much less a quiet moment to meet with God. If Claire doesn’t sleep through the night (like last week when she had a cold), it is difficult to get up early. This unique season means I have to improvise in order to feed my soul. In the words of Jean Fleming, I need to “do what I can.”
Some days this means reading my Bible over Claire’s nap. It means putting worship music on while I work around the house, or listening to sermons online. I also try to read good books with short, simple Scripture meditations to give me a quick “shot” of truth. John Piper’s Godward Life volumes, and Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening are great resources. This time around, I’ve been blessed by Paul Tripp’s Shelter in the Time of Storm. His thoughts on Psalm 27 have provided just the daily refreshment I have needed.
So, if you have a newborn like me, may you too be encouraged in the grace of God as you do what you can.