The last month has been a whirl wind to say the least. When we finally had time with our two older children, who are 8 and 6 years old, every other weekend, it felt as if they were with us for a blink of an eye. How could we possibly take time to talk about values with them as a family, much less work on those values in 24 waking hours every two weeks? The lack of values within our children’s lives, due to them spending the majority of time with their mother, who hold different values, is extremely hard. We then tend to enforce our values and beliefs even stronger when we have them due to emotions and frustrations that lie beneath. When my husband and I spoke on this issue, we realized until we have the children more we can only do our best to instill our values as well as lead by example. (Editor’s note: this is the case for most families because of the hectic pace of life in general; it just is made so much clearer in this type of situation!)
“The arrival of stressful and chaotic times is when we need to unite as a family even more, as well as surrender control.”
Recently my husband and I spoke about our desire to love and respect each other more effectively in our day to day lives, in hopes to better our relationship as well as be an example to our children. With all sorts of stressors in our daily lives, we have found it difficult to love and respect each other as well as I would like. I will speak for myself on this topic. On October 12, we had gone in for an ultrasound to check on our baby. I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time. Our OB came in and explained the baby needed to come out that day via C-section. Long story short, the baby was delivered hours later that day. We left the hospital 3 days later with our baby girl AND barely anything in our home prepared for this little one.
This was a massive, and unexpected, shock to me and my husband. The stress of not having the house ready, especially feeling as if I couldn’t nest well with my new baby was extremely hard for me. I like to be prepared. The lack of control I had over this new way of life (that I was not exactly ready for), left me feeling unstable, and I am sure the hormones contribute as well, of course. Dealing with a new infant and lack of sleep has left me feeling depleted at times.
Finding time to purposely love, and respect, and instill values during such a time has been very hard. I feel I have failed miserably in this recent season of life. The arrival of stressful and chaotic times is when we need to unite as a family even more, as well as surrender control. One thing my husband desires to do as a family is put a poster up in our home with values we all choose to work on daily as a family. This will hopefully be a positive visual reminder for us.
Live Your Values, Everyday 