The other day, as I was heading to the bathroom to get into the shower, my two and a half year old said, “Mom, I don’t want you to get in the shower. Because when you in the shower, I don’t have . . . I don’t have you.”

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith,

than an house full of sacrifices with strife.

Proverbs 17:1

It’s 9:30 a.m. and the laundry isn’t started yet. I haven’t done my aerobics DVD. There are still breakfast dishes on the table. I’m walking on bits of gravel from our paleontology project that are systematically being ground into my unvacuumed carpet. And I can’t tackle any of it right now because my baby needs to nurse, and homeschool is supposed to start in half an hour.

Worse than this, far, far worse than all of this, I’m grumping at my children, “NO, we can’t do that right now. I’m very behind on my schedule.”

And then my sensitive two and a half year old looks up at me with tears in his eyes and says, “I wanted you to take care of me.”

Ouch.

Time to declare a Dry Morsel Day.

When things get to the point where I’m putting all my projects, noble and even invaluable as they may be (like laundry), ahead of quietness; when the main source of strife in the home is Mommy, madly rushing about, griping over unmet personal expectations; it’s time to back off. It’s time to put my projects on the shelf, and smile, genuinely smile, at my children, ask their forgiveness, and redirect them to something happy while I make a new plan for the day. A much, much simpler plan.

The things that make me feel like life is good are usually bound up in accomplishment. I want to sew beautiful clothes, clean out cupboards, bake delectable dainties, have a spotless house, lose a couple more pounds, have my children working brilliantly at two grade levels ahead of their age mates, etc. But there are some days when I don’t really accomplish much of anything. Somehow time gets away from me, and then it’s later than it’s supposed to be, and I’m frustrated. Life feels bad.

But what makes my husband and children feel like life is good? One thing. Joy. They want to see a smile on my face. They want me to be bubbling along contentedly. If things don’t go right, they’d like to hear me laugh. They’d like to see that I’m OK, that a little gravel on the carpet cannot steal my joy.

On the days when I forget this, when my schedule and ambitions start screaming so loudly that my home is no longer a quiet and joyful place, I need to throw those screamers out. I need to give myself permission to have a different sort of day, to go back to basics, to do only what absolutely must be done, and only if I can do it calmly, cheerfully, and with my children. I call this a “Dry Morsel Day,” named for the time I was really stressed out and grumpy and my husband reminded me of Proverbs 17:1. Now I have the verse up in my kitchen to remind me that all the “sacrifices” that I so want to fill my house up with are not worth anything if they steal the quietness from my life.

When I die, I do not want my family to remember me as a sour, short-tempered workaholic, a slave to my schedule, and obsessed with projects. I’d like it if they remembered me as talented and industrious, but it is infinitely more important that they remember that I had a meek and quiet spirit, that I was calm, and loving, and delighted just to be with them.

Spit up in my hair? The day the Lord gave me strength to laugh even though the dog had diarrhea, and the four-year-old and the two-year-old BOTH stepped in it? I brainstormed as I folded laundry. The young lady, who seven years ago had been my maid of honor, was now getting married herself. Her bridal shower theme was, “Celebrating Womanhood,” and she had requested that her guests bring a picture or a poem that represented how each one felt about being a woman at her particular season of life. Being of a linguistic nature, I decided to go the poem route and began meditating on my non-stop life in the mommy trenches of homemaking with three small children. Focused at first on how hectic it all seemed, how tired I felt, how often I had to pray for patience and repent of grumpiness, I tried to weave in thankfulness and a sense of the Lord’s presence through it all. I had a few great lines. (“’Panacea,’ wow! What a stellar rhyme for ‘diarrhea!’”), but the poem just wasn’t coming together.

Finally, as the shower date neared, I prayed in desperation, “Lord, please give me a poem for Esther, one that will bless and encourage people.” And that’s when I realized it. My focus was all wrong. Sure life is hard sometimes, but that is not the underlying theme of my “season” here in the trenches. Strip away the daily struggles and what is left is an overwhelming sense of awe at the tremendous honor it is to have the job I have been given. Here is how my poem turned out.

Can it be?

Can it be that you have chosen me, Lord?

Me?

To be the helper for this man

The one who shares his dreams and plans

To be his beauty and his bride

And loved a lifetime at his side?

Can it be that you have chosen me, Lord?

Me?

To hold in my arms eternal souls

And teach them to pray over cereal bowls

To be the one they cry for in the night

The one whose love is their first delight?

Can it be that you have chosen me, Lord?

Me?

To shape the culture in this home

And daily see Your glory shown

To cook, and clean, and shop, and sew

To praise, and teach, and serve, and grow?

Can it be that You have given this to me?

This responsibility

To make a home for my family?

Exhausting privilege! Exuberant love!

Daily gifts of grace enough.

Can it be that you have chosen me, Lord?

Me?