Parenting is exhausting. What do you do when you have extreme fatigue and illness dragging at you?  It is easy to tell yourself, “just one more thing” or “I’ll figure a way to make it happen.”  Then you have the pressures from our loved ones. A child not understanding why mommy can’t come out to play.  A husband who just came home from work and doesn’t understand why dinner isn’t done.

Are we failing in some way? In many ways? I sometimes think that.  I always think “I should….”  or “I could..”, “If I was super mom I would”  I call it the ‘oulds. Those things that didn’t get done that leave you feeling guilty.   Are we super women? No,  sadly we are not and despite what the TV would have you believe neither is the next door neighbor.  So revel in your lack of a cape. Let go of the guilt. The Lord has no intention of you sitting  around crying for one of the ‘oulds!

So you have fatigue problems. I do too, and it can destroy a day. While sick this past winter I was able to get from my bed to the couch. That was it.  I slept for the day. Not well, with that type of fatigue sleep no matter how much you sleep it is never enough.  I was only able to rely on  my hubby to take over the kids. When I had to tell a child that I was too tired I always hugged them and asked them to pray for me. I told them the truth, that I wanted to get up but mommy’s body was too tired.

Children can better wrap their mind around a problem if you give them a solution. I told them to pray. My children love God and believe that the Lord will heal me. That was something they could trust in.  By hugging them and letting them know that I wasn’t happy too. The situation became mommy is not sleep because she wants to but because she is sick.

Be open with your husband and  tell him how you are feeling. Don’t expect his ESP to pick up on your slumped shoulder or cough to let him know. My hubby always tells me to talk to him and try to be precise. Like are your legs jittery? For him I believe it is because he is a fixer. Present a problem and he works out a solution. Most men are that problem oriented.

Even if you are left without the energy to help with the house or other normal “wife ” duties. Try to uphold your Biblical wife duties. That is to support your husband. Be of a mild, joyful manner so that he is uplifted by your very presence.  Together a wife and husband are incredibly strong even when one is sick. Think why else would Satan be trying so desperately to destroy that which God has put together. He knows that two in Christ are ten times stronger and will grow stronger as time passes.

Chronic fatigue is a limitation but it is not an end to a quality family life.  Take time to enjoy your children. Let them know how much you can do in advance, such as mommy can play cards with you but I can’t go to the park. Talk to your husband be clear and loving. Trust that he will protect and help you through you troubled times. Uphold him so that he knows you will support and encourage him at all times. Trust in the Lord.

Heather Laurie is a christian wife, and mother to 5 children and 2 angels. She suffered with an unknown illness most of her life recently finding out she had lupus and a genetic disorder. Her children also have that genetic disorder. The Lord has led Heather and her husband Chris through these experiences to create a ministry dedicated to serving those with special needs. You can find them at www.LaurieFamilyMinistries.org or www.SpecialNeedsHomeschooling.com

Laurie Family Ministries

By: Heather Laurie

When I was a young wife with no children I had some limitations to preparing my home and feathering my nest. I would take all day to accomplish what most could do in a hour or less. I would have to work, stop and sit for an half an hour. Then repeat again and again.

I wasn’t very organized about my home making and I was brand new to the idea of having my own home. I loved to cook complicated meals and impress my new hubby. He in turn would come home and pamper me. He would finish up any last chores. He also had plenty of energy to help me with any big projects. Life was different but pretty easy.

Then I had my first child. . . My tiredness went from moderate to extreme and my medical problems made life a bit more difficult. Then for several years the Lord raised his hand and protected us from much of the medical problems I had been having. My health took a turn for the best!

That time has passed and I am dealing with chronic health problems yet again. The difference is now I have 5 children and a much larger house to manage. Those lovely children also have special needs that I need to tend.

Now I am the happy home maker with 5 children to help (or hinder depending on their mood [smile]) I still greatly enjoy impressing my wonderful hubby with a new recipe. I still want a feathered nest, clean home, and good food on the table. I realize now that in order to accomplish this I have to have a plan. I cannot just hope to get a vague amount of work done and believe the kids will naturally tidy up their area. So I have a plan!

1) ALL people in the home must help with home cleanliness.

2) I MUST cut down on the amount of stuff we have.

3) A menu is a MUST for my chronically tired mind. At the end of the day I am often so tired, I am just doing what I need to do to get through the day. If I have menu then I don’t have to try to remember what all we have, what recipe to use, and then make it all. On particularly bad days the crockpot is a great helper!

4) Everything MUST have a place of it will be on the floor.I don’t have the energy to constantly go through a pile of misc. stuff on tables, stairs, around the door. If it doesn’t have an owner and no clear purpose in the home it heads right back out the door.

5) You and your husband MUST come to a MUTUAL understanding of what you can do and what you can’t. This can also be adjusted as to whether you are actively sick, such as an MS flare or experiencing the less exhausting long low chronic nature of your illness. This mutual understanding will help on bad days when you have used up all your strength keeping the home together and didn’t have any left to clean.

Your visions of a clean, well tended, comfortable home do not need to leave because you are dealing chronic fatigue. They may need adjusting. You definitely need to talk this subject over with your husband so there are not unrealistic expectations between the two of you.

Have you found a printable menu, or chore chart? Please share any tips and ideas how to keep a home while dealing with fatigue!

Heather Laurie is a christian wife, and mother to 5 children and 2 angels. She suffered with an unknown illness most of her life recently finding out she had lupus and a genetic disorder. Her children also have that genetic disorder. The Lord has led Heather and her husband Chris through these experiences to create a ministry dedicated to serving those with special needs. You can find them at Laurie Family Ministries or Special Needs Homeschooling.

Now we are on to Part 2. We’d also love to hear your feedback in the comments below. We know many of you work from home or are considering it.

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By Jill Hart, reprinted with permission from her book “So You Want to Be a Work-at-Home Mom.”

Here are practices that will help keep you focused on Him:

1. Read your Bible every day. Make the commitment to read at least one verse every day. The Book of Proverbs is a good place to start, or start with verses from the Gospel of John for a close look at the life of Christ. As you progress to reading more each day, consider purchasing a Bible that will guide you through reading the whole Bible in a year. There are also versions available that will lead you through the Bible in ninety days.

Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful (Joshua 1:8).

2. Cultivate an active prayer life. You can pray anytime and anywhere—when you’re driving, putting on your makeup, cooking, even as you drift off to sleep at night. Take advantage of these precious moments to spend them with your Heavenly Father.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

3. Meditate on the Word of God. When you find a verse or verses that have deep meaning for you, allow your mind to dwell on them, and let them soak into your spirit. A good starting point might be Romans 8:38-39—“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Make note of the verses you’ve chosen, and jot down thoughts or ideas that they bring to mind. Keep your mind focused on Him, and be in prayer that He will open your eyes to what He would have you learn from the verses.

4. Wait. Contentment will not be attained overnight. Feelings of discontentment will push their way in. When they do, look through your life to bring to mind the ways God has changed you, the things He’s done to bring you closer to an attitude of contentment. Contentment comes in His timing, so allow Him the time to work in your life.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him (Psalm 37:7).

If the temptation to wallow in discontentment continues to present itself, find someone who will hold you accountable—someone you can trust to be kind but firm who will speak the truth to you lovingly.

When you’re feeling dissatisfied or frustrated, give your accountability partner a call, and be honest about your feelings. Every mom gets frustrated; you’re certainly not alone. When you find someone you can talk with honestly, it will be an excellent help in overcoming negative thoughts and feelings. Accountability partners know each other on a very real and honest level and still accept and love each other. This allows both of you the opportunity to be supported as well as supportive.

Setting Priorities in Business and at Home

Working from home, particularly if you’re running your own business, is a time-consuming endeavor—especially for moms. You’re responsible not only for the success of the business but for your family as well. You must be self-reliant, self-motivated, and self-disciplined in order to attain success in both areas.

When you work at home, it’s easy to let phone calls, e-mail, and paperwork keep you tied down and cause you to feel you don’t have time to take a break or choose to spend top-quality time with your family. Maybe you’ve noticed that you spend more time in front of your computer or on the phone than you expected to when you made the decision to work at home. Maybe you see your kids acting up and trying to get your attention. Maybe the work-at-home dream you envisioned isn’t happening.

You started out with noble intentions, but now the excitement of success in your business has caused you to lose sight of the primary reason you chose this path. It happens to many of us who work at home, so don’t worry. Help is on the way.

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard (Proverbs 31:16).

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Read tomorrow’s article, part 3 of Making the Choice To Be a Work at Home Mom!

Jill Hart’s entrepreneurial career began in her teens when she spent a summer working with her father who ran his own business. When he put her in charge of a Coke machine and allowed her to keep the profits, she saw the benefits of being her own boss.

She is the founder of the popular Christian work-at-home website CWAHM.com and mentors business owners at SuccessfulChristianWomen.com. Jill is also the co-author of So You Want To Be a Work-at-Home Mom .

You can find out more about this nonprofit organization and also asked Jill personal questions about how to find legitimate work at home opportunities at her website the Christian Work at Home Mom web site.

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By Jill Hart, reprinted with permission from her book “So You Want to Be a Work-at-Home Mom.”

Today’s moms are passionate women who want both careers and families without having to give up precious time with their children. They’re searching for ways to have it all, and they’re finding that it’s possible to work from home and at the same time balance a family.

It may sound like a dream, but it’s not. It does start with a dream, though.

A few fortunate women fall into a job or business that allows them to work at home, but it isn’t that easy for most women. To find a way to stay at home while still contributing to their family financially is something that many women long for but few know how to achieve. We hope to make it easier for you.

Being Content at Home

You might have expected us to immediately launch into a chapter about how wonderful life can be if you work at home. However, with the authors having worked from home many years, we realized that you first need to be content in your home life to make it work. The focus of your mind is where true happiness lies. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Before beginning your search for a career that will allow you to work from home, it’s important to remember that God has put you where you are for a reason. It may be for a season of your life, or it could possibly be long-term. Either way, trust that God will provide what’s best for you, and that may look a little different than what you think is best.

Being a mom and working outside the home can be incredibly challenging. Coordinating schedules, running kids to and fro, and being so tired by evening that you don’t have the energy to enjoy your kids take their toll. However, being a work-at-home mom every day, all day, presents its own unique challenges. It can become monotonous, even tedious. The kids, the house, the responsibilities—the list goes on and on. In either case, it can feel downright impossible to have an attitude of gratitude. The road can be hard, but in the end, your life will be less stressful and more satisfying if you can overcome discontentment. Following are some ideas for building contentment.

Be Grateful

Make a list of things in your life that you’re grateful for. You can start your list with your family and the opportunity to work from home, and continue from there. Take the time to thank God for each of the things on your list. As you begin to develop a grateful attitude, you’ll begin to notice more and more things each day you can add to your list.

Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that (1 Timothy 6:6-8).

Give Back

Changing your attitude is the first step to finding contentment. Reaching out and helping others is a proven way to change your attitude. When you extend help and graciousness to others, it can’t help but benefit you as well.

Find someone who needs a friend, and make a conscious effort to reach out to him or her every week or every month. Or find a ministry that you admire, and get involved. You’ll be surprised what investing something of yourself in others will do for your attitude. If you’re running a business from home, you may be able to bless others with a product they can’t afford or a special discount that will brighten their day. Maybe you can mentor someone. Be careful, though, that you don’t get so involved in helping others that you neglect your own business.

Choose to Accept Your Situation

A key component of contentment is acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t strive to better your life. It simply means that you make peace with where you are in life at this time.

There will always be more to attain—more money, more prestige. If you spend your life focused on what you don’t have or what you haven’t attained in life, you’ll be sad indeed. Celebrate each and every success, no matter how big or how small.

Examine your life and see all that is good in it. Each good thing is a gift from God. Accept that He is with you at this point in time. He’ll be with you in every success and every setback. Nothing you do will make Him love you more, and there’s nothing you can do that will make Him love you less.

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Focus on Christ

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Read tomorrow’s article, part 2 of Making the Choice To Be a Work at Home Mom to find out some habit that will keep you focused on Christ and more about how to be a great Work at Home Mom!

Jill Hart’s entrepreneurial career began in her teens when she spent a summer working with her father who ran his own business. When he put her in charge of a Coke machine and allowed her to keep the profits, she saw the benefits of being her own boss.

She is the founder of the popular Christian work-at-home website CWAHM.com and mentors business owners at SuccessfulChristianWomen.com. Jill is also the co-author of So You Want To Be a Work-at-Home Mom .

In a sense, they are borrowing an attribute that belongs to a God they don’t know and exercising a representation of a spiritual truth they don’t believe. To be fair, there are people with good marriages who have detached the basic virtues that uphold their relationship from theology.

But if they do not understand the holy reason behind why their marriage works, neither can the fragmented family be expected to pull together apart from God’s paradigm of sacrificial love.

In “Then Comes Marriage?: A Cultural History of the American Family,” author Rebecca Price Janney names the distinction between secular and Christian marriages. Of the Christian couple she says,

Reading this book enlightened me with several insights as I approach tying the knot. First of all, I appreciate the focus of Janney’s message. Rather than condemning the culture, Janney turns this scenario on its head by placing the weight of responsibility on Christians to display “the most excellent way” and shine all the brighter.

Janney navigates through centuries of marital tradition, tracing both the progresses and the pitfalls along the way, to prove the timeless power of this most excellent way of love. And after intriguing tales of bride ships, Victorian modesty, and feminist activism, Janney brings her readers to the conclusion that the restoration of the American family is up to the saints.

This connects for me as I consider marriage as a metaphor for the relationship of Christ and the Church. This saving relationship does not keep to itself, but produces a natural outflow of love and service as the redeemed person reaches out to those around him. Likewise, the Christ-centered marriage is not intended for isolation, but extends the same care the couple has divinely received to the community.

Janney affirms this, “There’s a wholeness to the family that is intact that trickles down through all society as they experience the benefits of relationships as they were meant to be.” She cites the Schaeffers as one such family, who knew that marriage, as Edith Schaeffer said, “is meant to portray something within the family of the love of God for His family.”[2] The Schaeffers’ commitment to the family enabled them to open their doors to many others, a ministry that grew into the L’Abri legacy.

My own family has taught me the value of hospitality. When my parents and two sisters moved into our manor-like home built in 1852, we asked our pastor to lead us in a house dedication. My parents bought the house with the intention of sharing it, and twelve years later we have hosted a foreign exchange student from France, a pastor’s daughter from Brazil, a neighboring family who lived with us one summer, our nursing student friend, various missionaries on furlough, great uncles, college roommates, and a handful of other friends and folk.

My mother likes to say she has eight children, referring to her three girls and the five foster kids who have become part of the family.

Janney writes, “…there is a certain winsomeness about families who follow Jesus, especially as He calls people to love others as we love ourselves.”[3] She points out that families of faith should be easily identified by certain characteristics, such as selflessness, patience, and the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23. Some of these characteristics will be counter cultural, but this only ensures that the Christian family will stand apart from the family struggles that surround it. These are the families, she observes, that serve on emergency response teams, volunteer in their neighborhoods, and pursue adoption.

It is a challenge I cannot help but take to heart. Zach and I may not have company china or the kind of house that can accommodate a church retreat, but we will get to know our neighbors. In August we plan to run a 5K together to support the local crisis pregnancy center, and once we find a church we plan to get involved. This is not because we think we have anything fantastic to offer, but because we feel that opening our lives to others is part of spiritual obedience and we want to start this habit now.

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her internationally renowned Christian charity, she was asked what people could do to promote world peace. Her response was simple: “Go home and love your family.” Likewise, starting small and praying big, we can be confident that God will shine through our relationships with His redeeming light.

[1] Rebecca Price Janney. Then Comes Marriage?: A Cultural History of the American Family (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2010), 223.
[2] Edith Schaeffer. The Hidden Art of Homemaking: Creative Ideas for Enriching Everyday Life (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971), 58.
[3] Janney, 221.

Dr. Rebecca Price Janney is a theologically trained historian and the author of 18 books including Who Goes There: A Cultural History of Heaven and Hell, Great Women in American History, Great Stories in American History, and Harriet Tubman. A graduate of Lafayette College, and Princeton Seminary, Rebecca received her D. Min. from Biblical Seminary. She resides with her husband and son in suburban Philadelphia.

By Stephanie Duncan

With thirty-six days standing in between us and our vows, Zach and I are still trying to track down late RSVPs and figure out the difference between white, ivory, and champagne. But even with so many pressing details, we know that these are fringe matters compared to glory we will represent when we soon meet at the altar. The pastor, who is Zach’s father, will say a few words about how marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for the Church, we will all (pastor included) cry our way through the vows, and then in front of everyone we will be declared husband and wife.

In many ways, we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into. If you’ve spent any time on a Christian campus (like the one where we met with courtyard foliage that incidentally spells out “I Do”) you know that it can double as a stage for relational drama.

Between the two of us, Zach and I know at least eight couples who have broken off their engagement. And while we have friends whose marriages we greatly admire, the tragedy remains that the divorce rate for Bible school graduates is no different than the world’s.

But what anchors us to a sanctified perspective is that in thirty-six days we will join ourselves together in the divine portrait of the Savior’s all-giving love for His Bride. How miraculous it is to reflect the Father’s naming attribute, as He is called Love, and extend this care to another.

It is this understanding that prompted Zach, during a surprise snowstorm one April, to tell me that he loved me. And from the conversation that followed until now, we have understood that because God is Love, to proclaim love is to invoke His very Name. To me this seems sacred, something I cannot afford to take lightly.

This is why we are delighted, anxious, excited and scared half to death of putting into practice this whole imitating-the-love-of-Christ-for-His-Church thing. How, I think, will this majesty translate into brushing our teeth at the same sink and doing our laundry together? How can my messy, trip-up self be entrusted with the high calling of reflecting redemption in our daily domestic life?

Paul answers me simply enough, “This mystery is profound” (Ephesians 5:32a). It is a mystery as much as it is a mercy, I think, that a husband and wife might rehearse the love they have divinely received in their conduct towards each other.

Yet our culture tells so many stories of relational wreckage. Instead of learning love from a Personal Being, a secular marriage too often practices love not as a sacred quality but a sentiment divorced from its very Creator.

Read Part 2 Tomorrow!