Wordy Wednesday

I almost saved this post for Monday, just so I could title it Motor Mouth Monday.  

For the past year or so I believe that Heavenly Father has been trying to tell/teach me that there are certain aspects of my life that need to change.  The message is everywhere I go.  Sometimes the message is loud and clear, and sometimes it is soft and subtle.

This is the message that has been surfacing over and over in my life.... Our homes can be, and should be, a refuge and a sanctuary from the troubled world we live in.

In order for me to write down what needs to be said, I'm going to quote a talk given by President Thomas S.Monson in an October 1988 General Conference Session.  It is titled Hallmarks of a Happy Home.  Happiness is found at home.  All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small, the neighborhood fashionable or downtrodden. Rather, we delight in the experiences we shared as a family. The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there. Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Great Britain, expressed the profound philosophy: “The family is the building block of society. It is a nursery, a school, a hospital, a leisure centre, a place of refuge and a place of rest. It encompasses the whole of the society. It fashions our beliefs; it is the preparation for the rest of our life.” (London Times, 26 May 1988.) “Home is where the heart is.” It does take “a heap o’ livin’” to make a house a home (Edgar A. Guest, “Home,” in The Family Book of Best-Loved Poems, ed. David L. George, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1952, p. 151–52.) “Home, home, sweet, sweet home, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” (Hymns, 1948, no. 185.) We turn from the reverie of such pleasant recollections. We contemplate parents gone, family grown, childhood vanished. Slowly but surely we face the truth: We are responsible for the home we build. We must build wisely, for eternity is not a short voyage. There will be calm and wind, sunlight and shadows, joy and sorrow. But if we really try, our home can be a bit of heaven here on earth. The thoughts we think, the deeds we do, the lives we live influence not only the success of our earthly journey; they mark the way to our eternal goals."  My brothers and sisters, let us determine, whatever our circumstance, to make of our houses happy homes. Let us open wide the windows of our hearts, that each family member may feel welcome and “at home.”   

I want nothing more than for my home to be a Heaven on earth.  I want my children to have a safe soft place to fall.  I want it to be the kind of home where when my children are grown they still want to come back.  

But what I want and what I'm living are two very different experiences.  

And the problem lies within me.  I haven't made our house a home.  I have all sorts of reasons, excuses and justifications as to why I fall short of being  a homemaker.  I catch myself saying, when I have my own home,  I'll do this and that....

I live under the pretenses that everything will be better tomorrow and that tomorrow's the day I'll finally get it together.  

So what I think I need to learn is to do all the things I was going to do tomorrow, today.  Make the changes today, begin today to fulfill my goals, my aspirations and my biggest dreams.  

Somewhere along the way my job as a mother stopped being about loving my children for who they are, I became a Drill Sergeant barking commands and shouting orders.  I became more like a dictator, and less like a teacher. Nothing makes this point more clear than the sadness that is written all my childrens faces and the disappointment in their eyes, after I'm doing yelling.

Somewhere along the way I stopped being tender and understanding, all for the sake of making them tougher.  Somewhere along the way I lost all my patience and I stopped using kind words.  Somewhere along the way I thought I lost who I was, because I had to use all my time and energy to take care of everyone else and that made me a little bitter.  

It only takes a few moments of quiet thought and recollection for me to understand why my home is not a Heaven on earth or even a place anyone wants to be.  

And that is exactly what I don't want.  

There are a million places my children will go where they won't be good enough, or where their unique gifts and qualities will go unrecognized.  There are plenty of people who will point out my childrens flaws, who will demean, devalue and discourage them.  It makes me sick inside to think that they come home to that too. 

I love my children, I DO.  But my actions are not speaking as loud as my words and I finally think I'm starting to realize that.   

Parenthood didn't come with a manual and I will be the first to admit I have made my fair share of mistakes and then some.

I operate in survival mode these days.  I'm stuck in autopilot.  Maybe that comes with being a mother of multiple children, maybe It doesn't.  I have the same reaction for just about everything, I lose my temper, I yell, and then I feel bad and get angry with myself.  

While I do do things right some of the time, I want to start today at making my home a haven for my children.

Some of the things I think I will help me are

1. Speak less, listen better, 
   
2. Use a soft voice. 
3. Find the good and praise it.
4. Give my children a choice rather then telling them what to do.
5. Follow through with (less harsh and more appropriate) punishments.
6. Tell each of my children that they are special to me.  Emphasizing the good I see in them and focusing less on their bad behavior.  

If anyone has good ideas or thoughts on what they do or what their parents have done to make their home a haven, I would love to hear all about it.