image courtesy of pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I sometimes wonder why if we aspire to live a more plain and simple life why do we seem to suffer things.  I don’t mean suffer as far as physical pain or loss, I mean suffer more like feeling the sting of rejection from others and sometimes financial burdens.  It seems all of us go through it but sometimes it seems it is always lurking right behind us, waiting to catch up.

We knew it would not be an easy life.  Choosing to homeschooling our children is not an easy task.  The loss of income and the amount of time it takes to school your own is consuming.  Sometimes we may think, maybe getting that job just so we can have a little more money or that vacation would be worth it.  But even through the trials of continuously working at our tasks as stay at home moms it is far better to be home with your children teaching and training them then enjoying fleshy desires. It may take years to see your work come to fruition, but it is a job well worth it.

Maybe your choice is in choosing to wear a head covering.  Some ladies go through feelings of doubt and rejection in wearing one.  I know some that doubt their beauty and what people socially think of them.  Some may desire a church that covers and will even scrimp on religious beliefs just to go to one that covers in order to “fit in.”

Sometimes we as “plain and simple” women might just grow weary of being the “strong” ones.  Sometimes it may be that we are the ONLY ones.  Finding like minded sisters in the Lord can be a struggle for many.  I know I have struggled much throughout the years trying to find like minded sisters whom I can reach out and share with.  I am thankful that the Lord took me through a time of just seeking Him, making it easy for me to avoid looking to others for advice.  I am very thankful for the women he has placed into my life now and also grateful for the quiet times that I felt alone.

It could be that we choose not to have computer access, thus making it very difficult to be able to fellowship or search out other women.  Feelings of discontent start creeping in with our choices of life.

What about choosing to wear only skirts or dresses? Dressing in skirts alone can be a struggle.  In our ever-present society where everyone wears jeans as the “norm” and modesty is way over looked. If you believe in modesty you are definitely an oddity, thus making you feel alone again even in our churches.

Sometimes as we choose this narrow path it seems we are set up for trouble and heartache.  But we have to be so content in our walk with the Lord and know that His ways are pleasing.  If we were walking the path as everyone else, than we would not be worth the time of the deceiver’s trouble.

I say this not to say that people who do not choose the narrow way are less likely to have trouble and sorrows, rather, they have a different type.  We all suffer in our own way and for different reasons.  That is a result of the fall from grace.  But, in our suffering there is light at the end of the tunnel.  We are headed towards that light.

When your children are older, they will look back and see the example that you set for them. They will be grateful for a mother who sacrificed and “suffered” so that she could raise her children with good morals and values.  They will see that you chose to do the best for them and put their needs above your own by choosing to stay home.

You may have people that look at you in an odd manner.  They may gossip, or talk badly about you behind your back, but that is okay.  Be content in your walk and choice of life.  Don’t presume that you know what goes on in everyone’s heads.  We can’t look upon man’s heart.  That look or that comment may be them trying to figure out what gives you your convictions to go a different route.  They might be wondering where your inner strength comes from?  And why they don’t have it?

The people who openly question and make unkind remarks are usually being touched by the Holy Spirit.  Otherwise, why would they care?  You might be the only light shining to these souls, showing them another path.  If people choose to criticize you they will have to respect you for standing up and walking against the grain.

Pay attention to the ones that are not in your immediate path of life.  The mom at the grocery store who sees that you don’t purchase processed foods but choose to make healthy food for your family.  Maybe it will be the bank teller who is struggling with wanting to wear dresses full time.  Maybe it will be a conviction of wearing a head covering for someone who feels that they can’t socially wear one.  We don’t know everyone’s struggles of life, but we do know that we are called to be an example.  To let our light shine before men, so that they can see our works of the Father.

When those struggles get you down and you doubt that you are strong enough to keep going, take the focus off of yourself and turn it back towards God.  God is using you for  a better purpose than you can even imagine.  Let these tough times come, ride them out, gain wisdom to learn what to do the next time around.  Finally, testify of the goodness of what God has done in your life to others.  This is the biggest encouragement to others.  Take your persecution as a blessing and rejoice over it.

 

Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

 

My goal, is to put this in each week as a new series, to allow me some regular series going each week.   I will try my best.

As you may know, I believe my role as “Mom” is a great and mighty role.  I believe that when given that role, it is my job to do the best with the resources that God has given to me and be productive with them as well.

Here are my last week’s frugal productivity……

This week was a busy week, we had just gotten back from camping and we were full swing into getting back into school.

It took me a few hours to unpack things and most of the day to wash the bedding and clothing.  I was VERY thankful for my big washer and dryer.

Being in a large family, I have found we have to be creative when it comes to organizing some of our things in our household.  For the bathroom, I have been frustrated with our scrubbie holder.  We used the chrome hooks that were hung in our shower and for the 2 hooks, we held 4 different scrubbies. Every morning, I was constantly picking up someone’s scrubbie that had fallen into the shower, fumbling with trying to untangle my scrubbie, and trying to keep one separate for the child who cannot handle any type of soap on her body.  I wanted to replace some of them and was talking to my oldest and realizing that he wasn’t even using the correct scrubbie all this time!!! I had to do something different.

I have a friend who recommended putting hooks on the back of the door and hanging them separately for each child, the only problem was that we have a pocket door for the bathroom, so that wasn’t going to work.

I then thought of staining a nice piece of cherry wood and hanging it vertically alongside of the shower and having hooks for each child’s scrubbie.  That was a good idea until I realized that the cost for the hooks was going to be $15 plus the wood cost.

Then after talking with my friend who has a “larger than us” family, she said that Walmart had a shower organizer with lots of little hooks for around $12.  I checked it out my next shopping trip and bought it.

This is perfect for us.  It holds all the scrubbies and bars of soap.  I don’t like soap on the shelves in the shower, too hard to clean.  I keep a veggie scrubber brush in the shower for little ones feet and nails.  Some of the older ones also brush their teeth in the shower.  I didn’t realize that was a “weird’ thing to do.  It just cuts down on the time to have to do it outside of the shower.  I put an index card on the wall above the shower and wrote down who has which color scrubbie.  I plan on keeping this up until everyone is acclimated in using the correct color.

 

I had to clean my oven this week.  This is one of those jobs that are NOT one of my favorite things to do.  I do not use natural homemade cleaners, as I have found it is WAY harder to clean.  This is probably the only “harsh” chemical I buy.  (I do buy bleach, because we do use this occasionally but not for regular cleaning.)  Anyways…..my frugal accomplishment would be to NOT use paper towels.  I had ALWAYS used almost an entire roll to clean out the oven, because I didn’t want to deal with the mess.  Well, this time I just used an old washcloth and filled a bucket full of water to rinse the cloth in.  It really wasn’t hard at all.  When I was finished I rinsed off the cloth and hung it under my sink on a little hook.  It will sit there until I have to do this task again, probably another month or so.

While vacationing, I have found that my children really enjoy peaches cut up and covered in granola.  That is something I enjoy eating and all my little ones kept eating off my plate, so I decided to give it to them for a breakfast meal.

We also have an abundance of apples right now, I like to slice up the apples and put them on a plate with a dab of peanut butter and sprinkle granola on it for my children to dip it.  Here is our easy recipe.  

We also went to our local Farmers Market this week while out for an appointment.  I like to see if anyone has containers of things that they want to get rid of and will sell to you cheaper.  I was able to pick up a box of cucumbers for $4.  They were all mismatched and some were curvy, but when peeled and cut up they taste just the same.  I kept these on the counter this week to munch on along with some baby carrots, leftover from camping.

I have upped our Kombucha making process.  My husband and I really enjoy drinking this healthy drink.  I was only able to make a few gallons at a time, due to not having any more large glass containers.  I went to Walmart and found 2 gallon glass “cookie” jars for $15,and now use them for making my kombucha in.  This has allowed me to NOT purchase any other kinds of drinks for my husband and myself which allows us to be frugal in our drink selection.  Plus we are getting all the added health benefits of drinking kombucha.

This was one of my favorite frugal accomplishments for the week.  I had gotten an email from York photo, giving their latest weekly deals. One of the deals was a photo book for $10. I had gotten to see another friend who had done one of these books and I thought it was a really neat project.  It is almost like scrapbooking without doing all the work.  They are normally quite expensive, but once in a while they offer them really cheap.  This was one of those times.  

I had to upload photos, I believe I did about 100 photos for this book. You can do as many as you want, it was only about $1.50 for extra pages, not bad at all.  

You can choose from a million different fonts, background designs, clipart, etc.  I could of spent hours designing these books, but I didn’t . I chose some family scriptures and quotes and picked some simple designs.

I thought it was perfect because I have been making photo collage boards for the last few years to capture our family and this would be something different, but still something besides keeping the photos on CD’s or in a box to never look at again.  I plan on giving it to my husband for Christmas as he thought it was a really neat idea and he doesn’t know that I did this unless of course he reads this blog post!!!

For me, this was frugal, as it will be an inexpensive gift, plus I don’t have to have them printed off and made into photo collages, which is more work as well.

 

I was also able to FINALLY get photos of my children printed off for my living room walls.  York also had another great deal of buy 1 get 2 free 8×10 photos.  The only problem was, amiss ordering them I somehow forgot to get the littlest ones printed off.  Thank goodness Walmart photo has free shipping, I was able to order it and it should be here this week.  Sorry Stephen.  These are going on our living room walls because my walls have been bare for a really long time.

How about you?? Any frugal productivity things that you did this week?